+1

It's not the washing/drying that wears out bibs, it's the constant friction and pressure while riding. Maybe a wash/dry cycle frays some edges or drains some color, but the shorts are going to wear out eventually no matter how carefully you hand wash them. Not worth the effort.

+1

meh, it's under $10 to replace, just replace it with the chain.

Right?

I put ~14000 miles on my gravel bike in the past 2 years and wore out dozens of chains, cassettes, pulleys, and a few hubs, but never once did a quick link fail.

Snarky replies are amplified when OP and others do the same thing

I think that the pads in bike shorts are mainly to absorb moisture and also prevent chafing by not moving around relative to your skin. Pads on the saddle wouldn't work very well in that respect.

Personally I don't need much padding either way, or even none at all for 3-4 hours saddle time. Everyone differs to some extent, which may be another reason the pads are split up between saddle and shorts.

Why is this thread still going? Clearly OP knows what's best, and has shown on multiple occasions not to accept any answer or suggestion given. So, OP, ride your big fat comfy padded saddle, and the vast majority of the rest of us will continue do it wrong. At this point, you really are trolling, whether you realize it or not.

Cue the trolling reply in 3...2...1...

Thanks!

Because it's been a slow couple days at work

How long is 'since forever'?

First, when I started cycling, I wore wool shorts with a chamois liner. In this case 'chamois' refers to leather from a chamois. It was incredibly smooth when wet, from sweat, for example, and I believe that smoothness prevented chafing. It was not padding. At least one other poster mentioned chamois, but he made his point more subtly.

Second, if you look for images on the web of vintage bicycle seats, you'll see some padded ones. I rode an Avocet Touring I for decades, and it was padded, though it's a fairly recent development as I count time.

Is it really necessary to mention that invalid assumptions generally lead to messed up thinking?

Third, you raised an experimental question. What have your results been? Did you search for published reports of experiments? Did you do any experiments yourself? I suggest you try out padding on your seat for your next few races or, even, training rides. You might find something that makes you a billion bucks ... although padded seats have never driven unpadded ones out of the market, which should tell you something.

I agree in principle, but not in detail.
Of course marketers will do their marketing, but to think it's all "emperor's new clothes" is ones own bad faith.
Meanwhile, I've gotten a bike with disc brakes (because that's how CX bikes come these days) and I've yet to notice a meaningful improvement over quality rim brakes on alu rims. Not that I doubt others can appreciate a difference, just that it's another one of those things.... Maybe I'm not good enough for them.

Hi! What's this thread about?

Asking questions and ignoring answers.

Hi! What's this thread about?

😂😂

This thread is kinda like deja vu from 2009:
https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/54...ding-seat.html

But the bike industry is also conspiring to destroy all those bikes. I've heard they (the 'industry') dress up in super tight jeans, grow beards, quit showering for a few weeks, and use Pabst-scented mouthwash then go around buying up all the good lugged frames which they render useless for multi-speed purposes by shaving off the downtube shifter bosses. To make the bikes even less likely to be bought by someone hoping for a retro ride they install 5" wide flat handlebars, pink painted rims, and flat spotted tires. Like Damon Wayans once said, "C O N spiracy."

I'm going to take this up a notch.

If moving padding from saddle to shorts is an improvement...

then moving it from the shorts to under the skin would be the ultimate in comfort.

Krispy Kreme, here I come!

'cause no one wants to see your gooleys.

The point was "many of (bicycle) things sold today are mostly marketing". And argument that marketing doesn't "respond to consumer's wishes", but IMO it's often quite the contrary - brainwashing people into buying (a lot more) expensive things they don't really need.

A decent 8 speed chain costs about 10e, along with a (reusable) quick link, so it can easily be removed whenever a thorough cleaning is required, prolonging the chain life.

As I said on page 1, I went ahead and got some unpadded shorts, seamless underpants and a seat with "relief groove" and thicker padding than a normal race seat. Tested it out last night for 2 hours. Its perfectly fine. No chafing or soreness and less sweating. I will test it out some more this month.

This is very interesting, and gets to the crux of the controversy, as it were. I think most people agree that what's necessary for doing something all day long is not necessary if you're only going to do it for half an hour. Same goes for intensity - what you need for racing and what you need for just riding around are not the same. Question is: where is the transition point? Clearly it varies from person to person. For me, even though I'll go ahead and put on cycling kit even if it's just a 90 minute ride, I'm pretty sure I'd start to wish I had worn proper shorts if the ride is more than three hours - 90 minutes out, 90 minutes back. Similarly, after about 60 miles on a carbon bike, I start to wish I'd taken the steel one.
I suppose a lot of guys out there in padded bibs on hard saddles don't really get any advantage from them and might do just as well in the setup you describe, but that's not to say they couldn't or wouldn't appreciate them from time to time if they went for longer, more intense rides than usual.

I'm curious, how many 10/11 speed bike you have?

I have a wide range of drivetrains: 1x1; 1x8; 2x8; 3x8; and two 2x10. I've never seen any difference in chain life; with regular cleaning, the chains last 3,000 to 5,000 miles. And these bikes see so diverse conditions, like a dry-day road bike to the fatbike that sees the worst conditions available.

This is a minor, minor point... so I go back to my earlier point: meh

As was stated in another post, if 2 hours is your typical ride time and this combo works for you, cool!

For a short ride, this works for me too. Like today, I'll be riding to the LBS, leaving a bike for them to wrench on while I work at a nearby coffee shop. I don't like working in the coffee shop in a kit (that looks silly). So I have some bike-jeans with a non-padded shorts and I'll ride my B-17 - no padding on saddle or shorts. This is going to be about 2 hours total and I know from experience, this works fine.

However, when I do the Almanzo 100 in a couple weeks, I will very happy to be wearing my kit.

Here's another experiment to try (guy in red cap):



The padding is on the saddle, not your skin.

Chain that is regularly properly cleaned lasts longer than one that is not. I see no reason to argue, nor prove that.
Chain for 10 speeds costs still (at least in my country) twice the price of an 8 speed chain. Gains from 2 extra gears are more than questionable IMO.