Quote Originally Posted by DebW
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!