We recently ran a poll that asked a simple question: Chamois or No Chamois? With well over 1,000 responses, we now know where our audience stands on padded cycling shorts. For more on the results, dig in below…

In last week’s Friday Debrief, we ran a poll: Chamois or No Chamois? It followed comments on Logan’s Cut List, where his reflections on moving away from padded cycling shorts stirred the pot. Inevitably, the poll did, too. Now, with over 1,000 reader responses, we learned just how divided folks are over using chamois on multi-day trips.

With 58% of the vote, the padded-shorts wearers have it! Though many of us on the team opt not to wear chamois or padded cycling shorts, it seems the majority of our audience does, at least for multi-day bike trips. While the data is interesting, a few comments highlighted some great points concerning specifics. Commenter Devin, for example, mentioned that his significant other wanted to see the data broken down by gender. Though many male cyclists do just fine without a chamois, I know some non-male cyclists struggle to find the right saddle or feel comfortable on the bike without any padding. Others said leather saddles were a great alternative to modern synthetic options with chamois, and some pointed out that the kind of riding is an integral part of the dilemma. As Chad noted, riding long hours on flat terrain might necessitate a chamois more than the undulating riding you might get on singletrack.

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Of course, Miles had his say almost seven years ago in a long, varied opinion piece about his experience with padded cycling shorts and why he doesn’t often favor them. While our scope was narrow, asking only whether people used them on multi-day trips, it’s always fun to see how impassioned people get about their preferences.

What do you think? Do Chamois make sense in any context? What are some of your favorite options? Let us know in the Conversation below…

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