I was just reading one of the CRAZYGUYONABIKE entries. He said he camped with several guys that must have had $1000 of duds, while he had on his practical "old mans" clothes. I ride with the pratical. I wear T-shirts and sweat shorts.

So----------what do all of you ride with. Pretty or pratical???

I ride with what I think is practical. I wear shirts from either Columbia or Rail Riders, mostly the latter, and I wear Cargo shorts, usually from Columbia. I also wear sandals 99.9% of the time. If and when the weather cools down, I just put on some wool socks and long wool pants.

Never worry about off bike clothes when I tour plus it makes the packing much easier.

Walt

I wear pretty practical.

I've never found regular clothes good for much beyond a cruise around the block. For long, hard rides, I prefer the compression and the wicking that performance clothing provides. They don't have to be expensive and since I only wear them to ride, they last a long time.

Mark

I wear mostly XL t-shirts (one size larger than the "L" that I'm "supposed" to wear). The reason for this is when the temperature goes above 100° F the close fitting bike togs are enormously uncomfortable.

Hiking in the Arizona desert, I learned a long time ago that loose fitting clothes are not only more comfortable but tend to keep some of moisture of your sweat between them and your skin. When the humidity is down below 3%, that layer of moisture makes heat exhaustion much less likely.

I also wear inexpensive cargo shorts from Sears.

At my age/condition, "pretty" is not really a factor - I definitely go with practical.

Y'all are probably right about it being a personal thing. Any type of man-made fabric seems to chafe me a heck of a lot worse than cotton. I have pretty oily skin, and the man-mades seem to stick to it and rub me, literally, "the wrong way." Damp cotton slides across those key ... ahem ... "contact points" without so much as a reddening of the skin.

Ah, bike specific clothing. The only type of clothes where an XXXXL = 40 inch waist. I bought a pair of shorts, on line, that were supposed to fit me. I couldn’t get them past my knees, let alone up to my waist. I was going to send them back but decided to make them a goal instead. I saw the Pearl Izumi rep in a bike store a couple of weeks ago. Told him I would buy 3 pair of shorts in my size. He just mumbled something about maybe coming out with larger sizes next year. Actually it's probably a good thing. Seeing me in Spandex has been known to cause blindness in 3 states.