Seems like it would help keep the shorts from getting stinky.
Edit 1: friction is the answer
Edit 2: sorry for this edit – i was trying to make a new post, but Blorp for some reason took me to editing this one instead. Trying to put it back the way it was…
No, some people use them as intended.
Go look at the shorts. Why is the manufacturer spending the time and money to put a nice, soft piece of fabric where your taint is touching? If the intent was you just wear your regular underwear they wouldn’t bother with that nice bit of fabric. But your bare skin is meant to be in contact with it, hence the nice soft material to limit chaffing and absorb sweat.
you wash it after every ride anyway. on the plus side, you get no underwear rashes that you would definitely get if you wore underwear.
and my personal favourite reason: your underwear doesn’t “cut” int your belly.
My understanding is that unlike undies the bike shorts don’t have seams that will rub as you pedal so they’re meant to be used as the base layer.
Let me ask a parallel question:
Why don’t people wear underwear under their swimsuits?
That one is more clear to me: a soaking wet underwear is not comfortable.
Also, swimsuits do not seem to atract body odors. If anything they get chloriny
Maybe if the underwear is not wet, it’s not time for bike wear. This is for endurance and sweat management.
I thought the padding was to not get back pain. Right now I’m limited to about 30 min on the bike before i have to call it without shorts. With padded shorts i can go like an hour or more. This is mountain biking.
Chaffing and moisture management. Underwear is more often than not cotton. Putting a layer of cotton between you and the lycra would trap moisture. And yeah, the chaffing would be unreal.
Why would that be necessary, like Mamil, I wash those padded shorts after each use.
You don’t. Any more layer of fabric will cause friction and might lead to blisters or worse.
The rule is never wear underwear under bike bibs. But I am a man, women sometimes do wear underwear, guess it’s more of an hygiene matter for them.
As for comfort, i confirm by first hand experience that it’s much better WITHOUT.
YMMV
Why would be a problem for “general” hygiene? You wash your bibs every time you use them, it’s like your underwear, really. And while the TOP part of the bibs are made of Lycra or whatever other tissue, the underpart is the padded part, which has a different feeling on the skin anyway. And you wear them for a few hours at most, clearly not for entire days (well, now, those times you go for 180 or 220km… but that’s another story), so not a big deal, again. Blisters are a much serious issue, trust me.
Also, please, you are going to sweat and drench yourself, stink and be covered in dirt or sooth or smog or whatever. Maybe also catch a rainstorm, then sun. You going to need a shower and clean clothes as soon as you are over anyway. Trust me, underwear is something just not meaningful there.
Ask other athletes. Do 100m runners wear underwear? Do pole jumpers? No they don’t. And, do swimmers? No they dont, and swimming suits are the same fabric as bicycle bibs.
For women, you know, they need to wear lampoons, absorbers, or however they are called in English sometimes, and my understanding is that in those conditions, underwear is desirable. Again, i know girls who ride with and without.
It is subjective, but indeed more common NOT to wear them.
I guess i dont understand why in those conditions, underwear is more desirable.
I think he is saying if you wear an outside pad, not a tampon, you need something to stick it to that won’t be moving around.
I commute on an electric bike, in my work clothes, and seriously hope to never take a ride so long that I need gear. 6 miles or so is my limit.
I know that the padded bike shorts are supposed to be form fitting and minimize friction, but I have no personal experience about whether a menstrual pad would move less with or without wearing underwear under the bike shorts.
But if the extra underwear is for reasons of higyene instead, I am not sure why more men wouldn’t do it too. It sounds like the rich person answer is to just not worry about it and buy new shorts whenever your wear out from direct contact with skin.
I feel you on the bike commuting. Even when i was commuting short distances, I’d get to work way too sweaty. I’ve started riding an electric scooter to work instead, and now I’m not sweaty at all.
I would wear padded bike shorts when I plan to be biking for half an hour or longer. Thats when i start having back problems without padding.
It seems like people don’t typically wear underwear under them so I’ll have to look for tips to cut the stink. I already have some special soap for technical fabrics from amazon but it doesn’t do much.
Do you have a vagina? They have discharge. I’ve never had a penis before but they seem drier. If you have a vagina then by the end of the day you’ll likely have visible discharge stains on your underwear, so maybe women bike riders would prefer the underwear, idk. (I cycle but don’t wear bike shorts so idk about that.)
No vagina here. But i do have two holes that both sometimes have discharge. Sometimes visible. For complete disambiguation, this is the urethra and anus. It’s not like a lot, but it is unpredictable, and sometimes enough to leave a smell and sometimes be gross. Usually the anus.
They wouldn’t stain the outside of the shorts but they very well might stain the inside.
If women would prefer to wear underwear to protect their expensive bike shorts, I’m not sure why i wouldn’t either, except for the friction issue people mention.
Nothing, and I repeat, nothing prevents stink if you’re not washing after every ride.
Chaffing. On a long ride, I have to put a lubricant on the bike shorts (I use Chamois Butt’r) as well, which you don’t want to rub into your drawls. Most clothing just isn’t built to rub against your body for 10 hours continuously.
Someone gave me body glide, but I didn’t know where i was supposed to put it.
On the seams, where the chamois meets the short. Put a liberal amount anywhere the fabric isn’t perfectly smooth.
Friction. For extremely long rides (100+ miles), you want the least amount of friction for the least amount of chafing. I use chamois butter in my shorts too to cut it down even more.
Chaffing.
Clean yo ass. Wash the shorts regularly. You’ll be grand.
But seriously, clean yo ass. Like get right up there.
I do. I still don’t like getting poop on clothes if i can avoid it, hence underwear.
Ignoring possible medical conditions; that seems like a fairly easy problem to solve.
Do you know something I don’t? I use a bidet, I wipe. I shower. But still my underwear smells like ass. I figured this is the point of underwear: to protect the clothes.
Yes, underwear will help keep you from getting poop on your bike shorts. No, underwear will not keep ass sweat and smells out of your bike shorts for more than a couple minutes. So it depends on use case. As long as you are dingle berry free, an extra layer of fabric isn’t going to help much for smells.
I think I’ll have to disagree with you because underwear does make a big difference for other clothes, so why wouldn’t it help with bike shorts?
You’re going to have some particles from the anus and urethra that leak out while you ride, making your butt smell like ass. They can either be absorbed by the (relatively cheaper and easier to wash) underwear, or the expensive padded bike shorts. The shorts will still get sweaty and get washed after every ride, but they’ll have less skin and body fluid particles in them.
I get that most people can’t wear underwear underneath because of the added friction. Still stands to reason that if this wasn’t an issue, the underwear would help protect the padded bike shorts.
Quick question, does your bike seat have the padded part or is it just the tube?
I am not sure what you mean by “tube”. My seat has minimal padding and is pretty firm. All the bike people I’ve ever met have told me to never get the padded seat, always get the padded shorts.
Mine looks like of like the “men’s recreational” but without the air gap, here:
Dunno about you but the boxers get soaked. They would be very little to prevent the shorts from also getting sweaty.
Same reason you don’t you wear underwear under your underwear.
I have lots of underwear, only few bike shorts.
I wear underwear to protect clothes.
I don’t wear underwear under underwear because i don’t need to protect it.
So it must be a different reason from that.
