Bibshorts

Bibshorts! There, I said it!

Bibshorts are an item of cycling attire, essentially common or garden padded Lycra bike shorts with the addition of straps which go over the shoulders. Way back in 1998 Reiner Mai coined the term Lycrahosen on de.rec.fahrrad, which is a great name for them.

They have a couple of advantages over normal bike shorts: they don't fall down, and they keep the back warm. They have at least one massive disadvantage, which was brought to the world's vulgar gaze by Danny Colyer (and led to him being popularly known as "Nipples" Colyer). You will readily see that bibshorts are ill-suited to those of the fuller figure, particularly the ladies (though some ladies appear to take to them). Lycra is inherently unflattering, and bibshorts increase this effect by at least an order of magnitude, so clearly all but the most finely honed physique will look like a badly made sausage in bibs.

Bibshorts have attracted more than their fair share of controversy over the years. First there are the perennial questions about underwear (answer: you shouldn't wear any under good quality bibshorts as it ruins the effect of the seamless high-tech padding and makes you all sweaty and uncomfortable), and then Helen S was rash enough to pick up on a comment about paving slabs in a h*lm*t thread in this posting which has gone down in infamy, and led Marc (marc at jayceeprint dot co dot uk) to design the urc b*bsh*rts logo above. The rest is history - as will you be if you wear bibshorts in Norfolk. Some unwise cyclists have chosen to delude themselves that bibshorts can be concealed simply by wearing a cycling jersey, but just as men can spot a visible panty line at half a mile, Helen can spot bibshort shoulder straps (or visible bibshort line) at truly astonishing distances.

Bibtights are similar but longer, and may be either padded or unpadded and worn over either bibshorts or ordinary shorts. They attract marginally less opprobrium partly because they at least keep the knees decently hidden and partly because nobody picks a fight with someone who's still prepared to ride their bike in the kind of weather where you need tights. Also even Helen can't spot the straps through three layers of Gore-Tex. We hope.


 * This is a uk.rec.cycling mini-FAQ.