Sugoi RS Short
June 24, 2010
FINALLY some bike shorts I can say only good things about. Except for one thing: these shorts snag on stuff. Stuff like Velcro, brush, sticks, etc. So there, the bad stuff is out of the way. Now I can tell you the good: the RS short is a lighter weight short than your typical spandex offering. It’s also kind of textured, as in, not really smooth and shiny. Which is good! At least from my perspective. I think this is some sort of aerodynamic roadie thing to which I say pffffft. Stop worrying about the texture of your shorts and start worrying about your training. Seriously, the aerodynamics of spandex shorts CANNOT be the deciding factor here. What can I say, I’m not a racer and not a roadie. Maybe I just don’t get that fussy roadie thing where you have to worry about whether your spandex is textured. I like the fabric because it’s nice and light in the heat. I’ve taken these out mountain biking and I really like them for hot weather, especially because the chamois has little ventilation holes that provide a refreshing breeze on the downhills. Now, you have to understand; heat is not typically a significant problem in Alaska so heat-reducing features are all new to me. But I like this one, because there is no chamois in the world that has enough ventilation for the fairer sex, believe me. And the way my boyfriend’s laundry smells, there’s not enough for dudes either, but let them hash that out on a dude blog.
Like most bike shorts, the magic is indeed in the chamois, ventilation holes or no. Sugoi seems to really “get it,” or at least gets the simple fact that women’s chamois should NEVER be textured. Soft and gentle is the only option, and Sugoi chamois are smoother than most. They are pretty nicely padded, too, and I’ve not yet experienced any significant discomfort from the RS chamois. As is typical, I am left feeling as if the, um, frontal central area as well as the seat bone area can never get enough padding, but I pretty much feel that way about ALL bike shorts so this small weakness is not a standout. Others with less sensitive nether regions might not even notice.
A Sugoi strength is the length of their typical bike short, a category in which the RS fits nicely. It’s a lovely length, juuust after the hamstring tie-in, reducing muscular discomfort and self-consciousness-induced discomfort as well. Since I’m a mountain biker, I spend a lot of time out of the saddle, and I don’t like shorts that are so short that the saddle rubs my thighs. The RS does not ride up or cause such unfortunate chafing. The fit is standard; I’m not a fan of insanely tight shorts so I stay with a medium and all is well. The RS is not too snug in the thigh for ladies with big biker quads, and even if you do have bigger legs than most, the well-thought out length will ease your mind since the legs hit at the slimmest part of the thighs.
My pair came in chocolate brown which is unusual for bike shorts but also kind of fun. The short comes in other great colors including of course the standard black, but watch out for the white, because it is, like most things white, see-through especially when wet. Er, good luck with that. Oh, and speaking of wet, when these shorts get sweaty they will regale you with some pretty interesting squeaking when they rub against the seat. If only Alaska was hot; squeaky bike shorts would be a good bear-avoidance method. Don’t let the squeak factor deter you, though, these are good shorts.
Pearl Izumi Symphony Short
May 7, 2010
It seems fairly obvious to me that women’s bike shorts should have chamois that are smooth. Maybe not the entire chamois, but certainly in particularly sensitive areas. This is not obvious to bike shorts designers though, and what could be a very nice pair of bike shorts is fatally flawed by the textured chamois used in the Symphony short. Pearl Izumi claims their “Elite” chamois as used in this short “reduces friction points” but I am here to tell you that no, no it does not. I’m kind of tired today so not inclined to mince words, if you haven’t noticed.
Aside from that, it’s a pretty well padded chamois which I appreciate. If it had a nice smooth chamois cover for those key friction areas, I would be much happier with these. If you can live with a textured chamois, these shorts are decent. I like the waistband for the most part since it’s low in front, wide, and smooth, without some pointless tie cord. It’s clearly designed for roadie use though, since the back of the waistband is super high and I don’t need that. Really – who DOES need that? I know that roadies lean forward but really do they lean THAT much forward? How high up do their butt cracks go? Inquiring minds, and all that. I can also tell these are intended for roadie use because they are REALLY tight. They are so tight that they dig into my non-flabby waist and give the illusion of flab which is really not my favorite thing. I don’t see why they need to be that tight, but again, maybe it’s a roadie thing. I just needed a pair of padded shorts for MTB so maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree with these, but they seem heavy on pointless features, like the leg pocket. What is it for? Some roadie thing? What could go in that pocket that is valuable enough to need to keep on your leg but not so valuable that you would risk losing it by sticking it in a kind of loose pocket? To me, the pocket just makes the shorts look goofy without giving me any function in return.
The other pointless feature I do not like is the HUGE logo. Oh, wait, the huge logos, plural (which you can’t really see in the photo above, so don’t be fooled). And the other little patch that says “ultrasensor” as if anyone would care. Not only are huge logos obnoxious to look at, but they render the breathable fabric underneath them completely airtight. When the logo is more than an inch across and in more than one location on a small item of clothing, that’s a significant downside. Little areas of reduced airflow are a big issue when you’re putting out a lot of effort riding your bike and generating a lot of sweat. I guess they just really want everyone to know these are PEARL IZUMI shorts. Perhaps they are reflective or something – but if you’re riding at night you shouldn’t be wearing black and chances are you’re not relying on reflective logos to keep yourself visible in traffic. Me, I am a little embarrassed by two giant white obnoxious logos on plain black shorts – one on the ass and one on the leg and that “ultrasensor” thing below the back waistband. I wonder if an application of high heat would get those off.
The sticky stuff on the insides of the leg openings is pretty good. The shorts don’t ride up and they don’t leave marks on my legs, so a plus for that. I also appreciate the length which is just past my hamstring tie-in. I don’t like shorts that cut off right in the middle of the hammie muscle; it seems really uncomfortable to me. So, yay on the length and the good leg grippy things, and the padding. Boo on the textured chamois and the dumb logos. The fit is individual to the person so even though these were a bit snug for my taste someone else might like that type of fit, so that is neutral.
In general these seem like a pretty decent pair of spandex shorts whose appeal is reduced by a few unnecessary flaws and a ludicrously high price point. Yes, I know bike shorts are expensive and yes, I know that I am cheap about it. For $100 though I don’t want any flaws on my shorts, since I can get a very decent pair of shorts for $60. I wonder if there is something to those logos and if the $100 price on these shorts reflects $20 per logo, or something like that. I don’t get why these are $100 and other equally good (and even better, in some areas) shorts are $60. If anyone knows – the comment button awaits.
EDIT: Since these were shorts I actually spent my own precious money on, I ended up returning them. Every single ride resulted in some seriously chafed girl parts. No one wants that. Back to the store they went.
SheBeest Shindigger Cycling Knicker
May 3, 2010
I really like these pants, let’s get that out of the way. They are super comfortable, very soft and stretchy, nicely cut and flattering, and very cute. I really appreciate a bike short/knicker that isn’t made of shiny spandex and cut so tight that the marks on your skin last for days. I don’t see how that is necessary, but of course I’m a recreational MTB’er no matter how badass I think I am, so maybe there are some super secret reasons that pros and wanna-look-like pros need to have their pants that tight. I know that if you’re a road biker you are supposed to wear a matching set of brightly colored shorts and jersey and if you’re a mountain biker you’re supposed to wear a combination of super trendy baggy shorts and a MTB-specific riding shirt or a wool jersey with a beer logo on it, or something. The MTB look is a little hard to pin down, but there is a look, and you recognize it when you see it. Me, I like to look a little more low key. Matte earth tone colors, minimal logos, kind of an under-the-radar look. I try not to create expectations based on just what I’m wearing. So I really appreciated these tights, which are matte black and look just a wee bit too cutesy cute to be “serious” bike pants, but believe me when I say they suit a serious biker just fine, or at least one without the need to look “pro”. I like that they don’t have a grippy inner liner below the knee or at the waist like many bike shorts. They evidently don’t need it because they don’t ride up anyway. They feel soft and comfortable and not binding. No sausage-casing look here!
However, they do have a downside about which I am going to have to be brutally, completely up front. As in, TMI up front. The chamois on the Shindigger is a bit grabby. If you indulge in Brazilian type grooming, you won’t notice a thing. If you are a little more heavy on the natural foliage, you may find that the chamois just might end up GIVING you a Brazilian. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the construction of the chamois just seems to grab those short hairs somehow. It seemed to be more of a problem when walking around then when actually riding a bike and it wasn’t bad enough to deter me from wearing the knickers again, but it’s something to be aware of if only for the sake of solidarity (you’re not alone)!
The chamois padding is on the light side; not quite enough for MTB-oriented me to be happy enduring the three hour road ride I used as a testing session, but my usual MTB haunts keep me up and off the saddle enough that I don’t think I’d have an issue out on the dirt trails. If you have tougher seat bones than me, you won’t have a problem. I can only endure about 2 hours of steady saddle time before I’m just plain done no matter what shorts I’m wearing, so I acknowledge that my booty is on the delicate side. I’ll save the Shindiggers for the trail though; for riding around town the padding is just not robust enough.
Minor chamois issues notwithstanding, the Shindigger is a great knicker option; comfortable, relaxed, and just different enough to stand out without wearing shiny neon spandex, all for a great price. Bike shorts tend to be overpriced in my opinion, so anything under the $80 mark will get special attention from me. These are priced well under that mark and they’re good knickers to boot. I’d like to see this matte look catch on with other manufacturers because I’m really over the “shiny” thing and I think a lot of other women are as well.
Fox Diva Bike Shorts
April 29, 2010
I just got an email from a reader who felt that we had posted too many positive reviews lately. She said she missed my rants and was starting to wonder if I wasn’t getting paid to post postive reviews. Very flattering, but I don’t get paid for reviews, really I don’t. It’s not as if I can’t be bought; it’s just that no one has tried yet. I had just turned over a new, less prickly leaf, thinking that my gear experiences had mellowed me enough that I wasn’t taking the downside of each piece of gear personally. I was trying to focus on the positive and not be such a nitpicker. Turns out – people don’t like that! My public likes my hate-ons. Who woulda thunk?
So I cast about for some complete crap gear that I could write about. Luckily I had just gone bike shorts shopping so boy, do I have some commentary that will blister your computer screen. My wrath shall fall on the Fox Diva short, which after a day of bike short shopping stands out in my mind in large part due to its stupid name. My Gearguy even pointed it out in the shop and snickered, knowing that I would fly into an entertaining(for him) rage in the middle of the store about how manufacturers can’t figure out how to name women’s items anything but DIVA. I’ve already posted about this here and here. But it hasn’t gotten through to the industry so here we go again.
People, it is a red neon sign that you are not trying hard enough to develop your women’s market if DIVA is the only name you can come up with. A Diva is, in fact, a horrible person; a demanding, pushy, imperious bitch. Why do you name your gear after such a person? Is this what you think women are? For the record, I do know that the word “diva” has more than one connotation but I’m not buying that gear is named after a “female singer of outstanding talent” and nobody really thinks of a diva as a “goddess” any more. Even if they did, it’s an extremely over-used name. If I wanted to I could wear Diva ski boots and Diva bike shorts, carry Diva ski and hiking poles, hook a Diva wrench kit on my bike, put a Diva bike saddle on it too (it’s spelled Deva in that case but I am NOT FOOLED); wear Diva gloves, ride a Diva snowboard with Diva bindings, click into Diva skis, put on a Diva shirt and Diva socks; the list goes on and on. Stop it, industry! Put some thought into these things or just don’t bother.
So. Anyway. The shorts. Lately I’ve been envious of the cool baggy shorts the freeride girls are all wearing on the MTB trails. My staple spandex seems really quite lame at times and I feel like the odd woman out. I had the idea to go and buy some cool baggy shorts so I would feel more stylin’ on the mountain. This of course necessitated trips to various bike shops, which can be not nearly as fun as it sounds if you are female. I might save that discussion for another time (though I already have it written up but was waffling about posting it for fear of being too negative. Good thing my readers straightened me out – look for that one soon) but needless to say it was a frustrating day. Finally I gave up on the local places and headed to the big conglomorate which to its credit had a rather decent selection of women’s bike gear. I grabbed one of every style of baggy shorts and went to try them on only to find that not a single one fit remotely decently.
Is my body that weird? Is this really that hard? Is there a bike short conspiracy? I really don’t know but there has to be a reason. I tried on 6 pairs of shorts and NONE of them fit, but I’m picking on the Diva because not only does it have a sucky name, but it had by far the WORST fit of all. I’ll just come out and give you the stats; I’m a 5’5” size 6. This means I can buy a 6 or a small and I’m usually OK with the outcome. It also means I have size 4s in the closet that fit fine and size 8s that fit fine. That’s the way sizes are – inconsistent. So I’m OK with a little getting-to-know-you size surprize when trying a new brand. I am also over 35 so when the spandex comes into play I tend to bump things into the medium range just to be safe. Since women’s bike shorts only come in S, M, L it seems to be a no brainer that since I’m trying on baggies (which are supposed to fit loosely) and usually wear a size 6 bike short, the mediums will do. Well. To my horror I found that the medium Diva shorts were skin freaking tight in the hips and ass, as in, not remotely baggy AT ALL. Obscenely, ego-crushingly tight – and too big in the waist. Adding to the non-appeal of this look were the inner liner shorts, which basically fit fine but buttoned to the outer shorts in a spot that was just plain wrong, dragging the outer waistband down and creating a really non-cute fold/bulge thing unless I wanted to just tug the whole ensemble down and bust a sizeable crotch sag. A feeling of dread sunk in as I went back to the rack and grabbed a size L, knowing full well what I would find but needing to verify. Sure enough, the size L was WAY too big, falling-off too big, just ludicrously too big. I did a little web research and found that the women who were able to fit these shorts really liked them even though the comment that they run small was pretty common. I might – MIGHT – be OK with a line running small, but I am not OK with such a HUGE size disparity between the medium and the large. That is just ridiculous.
Really, Fox? REALLY? This is the best you can do for women; falling back on a stupid, hackneyed, overused and rather insulting name while not paying any remote bit of attention to how the item should fit? I mean, I try not to take it personally when an item doesn’t go with my body type; that’s just life. But for a size six person to go from a SKIN TIGHT size medium to completely drowning in size large; that is just not right. That’s just plain lazy on your end. Now, if you were flooding the men’s market with men’s shorts called the D-Bag, that would be just funny. But you’re not. You’re calling men’s shorts the Baseline, the Sergeant, the Ranger, the High Voltage, the Titan, the Altitude – and women get the DIVA. Again.
So I can’t tell you how the Fox Diva Shorts feel when you’re riding. I can’t tell you how tough they are or how long they last, or what you can expect when you launder them. I can’t tell you these things because the shorts are just unwearable. Adding insult to other insult AND injury is the fact that Fox clothing isn’t made for women at all, it’s made for “Girls”. They make clothes for “Guys”, “Boys,” and “Girls”. Not women, just girls. That’s all we are…just girls. All of us. From age 9 to age 90. Girls. Men can be either “guys” or “boys” but not us – no, we’re all just girls. I’ve seen this from other companies too and I don’t like it at all. I can’t be the only woman annoyed by this type of marketing. I’m not a girl and I don’t want to wear girls’ clothes! I am a woman and I want to look like one.
Fox does make a damn good front fork but I kind of feel like putting duct tape over that logo right now.
Pearl Izumi Sugar Bike Knicker
June 20, 2009
Notice a lot of posts about bike gear lately? Yes, it’s bike season, and it’s a short season up here so for a few months it’s all about the biking. I have to admit I pretty much like most bike shorts I wear, because if they aren’t comfortable I sure won’t be wearing them. These knicker-length bike shorts are no exception – they’ve got good padding and are pretty comfortable thanks to a lower-than-usual waistband (cut higher in back for modesty). These are definitely not thermal, so they don’t do much to keep the cold at bay when it’s chilly, but they’re good for slightly cooler days and days in which bushwhacking is on the schedule. Here in Alaska we have something called cow parsnip. It’s a plant that is pretty innocuous unless you happen to come into contact with sap from broken stems or leaves, and then go out in the sun. Then it leaves horrible welts that last months. Thing is, most XC trails around here are chock full of cow parsnip, and in mid-season it grows up to completely cover the trails. If you want to ride the trails without cow parsnip issues, you have to wait for a rainy or very cloudy day, wait until the vegetation dies back in the fall, or wear long sleeves and long pants. If you don’t want to wait, then just get used to bushwhacking even though you’re on a well-traveled trail.
I’ve found that the knicker option is actually pretty effective, as I can at least bump the plants back with my knees which are protected by the knicker. My shins and calves don’t seem to contact the cow parsnip very much. So far, so good – so these knickers get a lot of action mid-season.
While these aren’t very warm, they’re still good for when weather is unpredictable. The downside is that it’s impossible to put on leg warmers with knickers – you have to put them over the knicker and then the grip doesn’t work and they slide down. You pretty much have to put pants over them or just deal with having cold shins. I like the waistband which is low-cut in front – my preference is for low-rise; it’s more comfortable – but is more than adequately cut to cover the bum in back. It has a regular string drawstring which I find I prefer to having an elastic waistband.
My other complaint about these pants is the seam that runs down the center of the legs. It’s not uncomfortable, but it does leave marks straight down the center of my legs that remain for several hours afterwards. I don’t notice it when I am actually wearing the pants, but it’s kind of annoying to have marks on my legs all day after riding. I’ve also noticed that the padding is not as long in the rear as I’m used to, and when I’m on and off my seat, it can catch on the front of my seat when I’m trying to remount the bike. When I try to get back on while going downhill, this can be a real hazard. Other than that, I find that the padding on these shorts is among the most comfortable of the shorts I own, and I have to say that’s probably the most important part of a pair of bike shorts, as far as I’m concerned.
Sugoi Neo Pro Bike Shorts
June 15, 2009
As I’ve recently discovered, bike shorts aren’t the most convenient things to wear out, especially when one is in the middle of a 30 mile XC ride. It is always sad when a favorite piece of gear wears out, but bike shorts’ failure can be catastrophic. Why? Come on, you all can figure this out. Was a tad awkward. I should have seen it coming from the fraying hems and weakening spandex. Ah well, at least I was with friends.
Anyway, the sad passing of my Sugoi Neo Pro shorts made me realize that I’d never reviewed them for the site. Strange, because these have been my favorites for the last year. Yep, I wore out a pair of bike shorts in one year. And the bike season up here is only really four months long! I’ve pretty much lived in these shorts, having worn these for 90% of my rides. I can see how much I’ve been wearing these from the intense tan lines on my legs. Perhaps it’s time to try a new length to even out the tan situation, but I do love this length. They are (were) just right, hitting just at the end of the hamstring muscle – a nice length because it doesn’t feel like a boa constrictor around the muscle. They have (er, had) great padding and a nice soft chamois. The waist (about the only thing that’s left) is cut on the bias, so it’s higher in back to allow for the road-biking-hunch thing, if that’s your bag.
I really loved these shorts. Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s pretty impressive that they lasted as long as they did, because I’m not too gentle on any of my bike gear. I ride every day, sometimes more than once a day. I crash a lot, get really dirty, and greatly enjoy thrashing through bushes and tree branches. Bike shorts do not have an easy life in this household. So I can attest to the lasting power of these shorts, even as I’m off to buy another pair.
