embarassing question

[tulip]

Anybody else here old enough to remember when the "chamois" in bike shorts was really a chamois (i.e. an animal hide)? After the shorts were washed and dried, the chamois was stiff as a board. Before you wore them, you had to scrub it back and forth in your hands until it softened up. And the shorts were generally wool. I never had wool shorts (always wished I had a pair) because knit fabrics were just coming in and the shop owner's wife made the shorts we sold from knit fabric and leather chamois. Unfortunately, the chamois shrunk and the knit didn't, making for uncomfortable folds in the wrong places.

Oh yeah! I rode across France when I was 15 in those! That's what chamois cream was for back then--to soften the chamois. Sometimes the Good Old Days were not really all the great!

[Cassandra_Cain]

So I feel obligated to provide a different opinion here. I wear undies under my cycling shorts. Ack, blasphemy, outrage, scandalous!

I've tried with and without underwear and finally settled on using undies.

I think it is personal preferrence, but I would at least suggest you try it both ways. See what you are comfortable with and then go with that. I would let your comfort dictate the choice and not conventional wisdom.