Marie’s bike shorts vs tri shorts question

Marie wrote in a question post:  “On the topic of all the snazzy duds I am going to get to wear this season, are tri-shorts different than biking shorts (I just tried them out, interesting….)”

Diane’s response:  Marie, tri shorts are different than biking shorts in that they have a smaller pad so you can swim, bike and run in them.  Bike shorts have the big padding and are only for biking.  The uniforms we are getting have tri short-padding so you can wear them for all three events.  In a race, you definitely want the tri shorts so you don’t have to pull on bike shorts over a wet bathingsuit (plus, lets face it, who wants to run from the swim to the bike transition in a bathingsuit   ) and then run after the bike in your bike shorts.

I have bike shorts and tri shorts.  Now, I wear tri shorts to get my body used to riding long periods of time in shorts with less padding.  Up until last year though, because I was racing shorter  distances, I wore bike shorts when I was long rides and tri shorts every other time.  It’s all a comfort thing.  You will definitely want to do some training in the tri shorts to toughen up

Let me know if you have any other question.

Diane