Biking Skirts-- A review of the Terry Cargo Skort Padded

For Mother's Day Mike helped me cover my assets. He bought me life insurance! No, not really. He bought me a biking skirt. It was super cute. Super cute and Stephanie do not often go together, so I was excited to test it out.

I am all about extra padding in my bike shorts for, ahem, personal reasons, and this skirt, with built-in shorts had an excellent chamois. My last pair of bike shorts was shiny and padded and made me look as if I were wearing adult diapers. My bum felt all soft and happy riding on my bike, but I felt ashamed, as if I should be some really professional biker if I wore the things. They were not super cute and I am not professional, so I felt like I had to explain to people we rode with that they were the only pair I owned and I really needed padding, and I didn't think I was professional or anything.

I have mixed feelings about skirts in sports. I don't think I would dare to wear a running skirt, it just seems so chaffy. I imagine my thighs would start a fire inside the skirt, which would definitely ruin the run. But I only bike once in awhile and I mostly do it alone, and my internal-combustion thighs are separated by a bike seat. I think I could pull off a biking skirt.

So yesterday, I hooked up ye old bike trailer (I think it was the first bike trailer ever invented. It ranks slightly above my double jogger, but just below my single jogger in the love-hate continuum), and I snapped on my skirt for a test ride over to the King's for Joyschool.

I left the tags on because I wasn't keeping it if I didn't like it. So I had to hide the tags in my shirt so as not to look weird to my neighbors. They were uncomfortable, but the really uncomfortable part came when the skirt flapped open. Talk about looking weird to your neighbors.

"Why hello neighbors and cars driving by. No, that is not what you think it is. See I have shorts on! Shorts underneath this flapping skirt. Yes, I am your daughter's youth group leader and the lesson last Sunday was on modesty. I am not riding around flashing everyone. I swear, I am an upstanding, moral, honest person. Really. There are shorts right here."

I should have expected this since the skirt is a wrap around, but I felt obscene. Now don't get me wrong, I was fully covered by the shorts underneath, but the skirt flew to both sides, making me feel like the neighborhood flasher. I wasn't exposed, but I felt exposed.

I thought about putting a snap on the skirt flap so it wouldn't fly open randomly, but then I would trap my leg motion, and if I ever tried to mountain bike in the snapped-shut skirt, it would probably catch on the seat post and force me to crash more often. I crash enough without skirts thank you.

So I took the skirt back and got a sensible pair of baggy shorts with a less-padded chamois, since they were the only shorts on clearance that weren't reminiscent of adult diapers. Someone needs to open a women's gear store around here.