Sunday, July 01, 2007

Riding bare

No, not bare like that.

Today I did a little experiment by riding in my unpadded Lycra running shorts, to see if that might be an option for my duathlon next Sunday. It's definitely going to be long (12 km - 73 km - 8 km), and it's probably going to be hot.

It would be nice if I could get away with just wearing my running shorts for the whole thing and not having to run in bike shorts with a big wad of padding up my butt. Well, actually my favorite cycling shorts aren't too bad to run in, but if I could leave off the padding I'd be just as happy.

I learned today that I can leave off the padding for bike rides up to 26 miles. It worked okay, meaning only the average amount of chafing and no horrendous weeping sores nor blisters nor gaping bleeding holes where they don't belong nor horrific amounts of bruising.

But on longer rides I don't know. One or more of those things might happen.

My duathlon involves a 45-mile ride.

Hmmm.

5 comments:

Herself, the GeekGirl said...

Funny you should mention this. I did my Oly on Sunday with just my old skinsuit, instead of cycling shorts. Wonder of wonders, I had NO chaffing. Apparently, I found out later, too much padding can backfire, just like it does in a saddle.

Joy | Love | Chaos said...

I settled on my skinsuit for my half this weekend, too, and found a tad bit less luck than Misty. By the 25th mile, things were getting really sensative. By the 35th -- darned uncomfortable. And, well, let's just say I was very pleased to get off that bike at 56. Very.

Sigh. The things we go through for the hobbies we love!

Andra Sue said...

No option of tri shorts?

Nancy Toby said...

Oh, yeah, I just count them as bike shorts. Actually the couple pairs I have chafe worse than my bike shorts because they have rough seams, and the pad isn't very helpful.

Still in search of the perfect shorts...

rachel said...

I used to pull a pair of bike shorts on during the transition (I have never been fast so a few more seconds didn't bother me) and then peeling out of them for the run was even easier.