Bike shorts

This is the first in a series of posts with clothing recommendations. Right now they just have Susan’s thoughts and lists of clothes; Brice will add his later. Recommended items are starred. Disrecommended items are X’d. Product names noted where known.

(Susan)

• *1 pa. Louis Garneau Zone 3K shorts
• 1 pa. De Marchi Women’s Contour shorts

I can’t underemphasize how important it is to have high-quality bike shorts for a long-distance tour. Previously, I was biking around town and on short tours with some cheapo Nashbar shorts, which cost perhaps 40 bucks or so. I realized that the big problem with these was that the chamois was unstructured and easily bunched up in the crotch, making it feel like I was biking with an extra-absorbent maxi pad on—quite uncomfortable and perhaps harmful in the long-term. On the enthusiastic recommendation of the owner of Proteus Bikes in College Park, MD, I picked up a pair of these LG shorts and rounded out my collection with the De Marchis, which were well-reviewed on Nashbar. (I second the consensus online that the De Marchi shorts run very small, order a size up.) Both were around 100 bucks each, which seems like a staggering sum for shorts until you think about the facts that you will be wearing them every day and that they are a key determinant in your relative misery while biking.

As Jill at Proteus promised, the LG shorts are the clear winners in my mind. If I could have started over, I’d have bought two pairs of them instead. With both the LG and De Marchi, the chamois stays nicely in place and unbunched. However, the LG chamois is much firmer than the De Marchi’s, which makes the LGs much more comfortable. Brice could always tell when I was wearing the De Marchi shorts because I’d start shifting uncomfortably in my saddle shortly after we started riding, my nerves feeling pinched and tingly, whereas in the LGs, it took a full day before I started to feel uncomfortable on the bike. I also preferred the LGs’ fabric, which was some sort of more breathable, waffled material rather than the straightforward Lycra-like stuff of the De Marchis. The only slight advantage of the De Marchis is that they dried overnight after a washing, but if you carry two pairs of shorts, which you should, that won’t much matter.

Both pairs of shorts are showing signs of wear in the butt after the long ride, but are still good for more rides.