Q&A : No underwear under my bike shorts?!
14 Jan
Over here at Bike Shop Girl headquarters we get many emails asking common questions on how to survive being a cyclist and a woman. In order to get more insight from other women I will often ask if I can put the email I received up on the web for others to answer.
Question : Okay – I have heard this before but it has always been from male sales people. I rode to work 3 or 4 times a week this year until the temps dropped and the snow started flying.
I am having difficulty wraping my head around the idea of putting on the same pair of shorts I wore on my 8 mile ride in the morning, to ride the same 8 miles on the way home – without underwear. It is easy to change my underwear a couple of times a day and pull on the same pair of shorts.What do other commuters do?
BSG : During the hot times of year I carry two pairs of cycle liner shorts.
. They look much like a boxer brief and are thinner than their spandex sister shorts. The reason for two is that I can sweat on the way to work, and not have to put them back on. If in a forgiving environment I often have rode to work, showered and hand washed my cycling shorts. Leaving them to dry during the day.
Now readers, what are your thoughts?
This may be TMI, but the last thing i want is another layer between me and the saddle. I refresh before and after a ride w/hand sanitizer. Just don’t go overboard, can sting if you’re too generous
The purpose of bike shorts with a chamois is to avoid chafing. Wearing regular underwear with bike shorts defeats that purpose entirely, as there are all sorts of seams or edges that would be in contact between your skin and the saddle.
I sweat when I ride a bike- even in winter- and luckily I have a workplace where I am able to hang up my shorts to dry during the day, either in a locker room, or at my desk. If I didn’t have this, I would bring a 2nd pair of shorts for the ride home.
I think the ‘never wear underwear’ rule is taken too much as gospel. I have cycled around the world and almost always had underwear on under my shorts, without any problems. Saved myself a lot of laundry too! Other people I know get terrible rashes. You just have to try it out for yourself and see if it bothers you or not.
Forget underwear! I have been so sore because I was adament it was my seat position not the fact that I wore underwear. For this person I would recommend having 2 pairs.
If you do want to wear underwear, try a very tight, thin boy short, or something where the seams are farther down on your legs. I hate riding in underwear, but when I feel I must, that’s how I do it.
So what do you wear under at that “time of the month”?
Jane -
Try … http://bikeshopgirl.com/2009/10/riding-with-your-menstrual-cycle-guys-beware/