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So I have piled on over 4 stones during the pandemic and haven't been out cycling much due to work and family stuff.
I have noticed with the weight gain my nether regions do feel off after I have been out on the bike (raw / chaffing). Liners / bibs were never something I paid much attention to and most of my gear is now too small / old and the chamois are paper thin.
Mooching the usual sites and wondering if the more expensive stuff is worth it? eg Endura vs Rapha? Any recommendations?
gonso sqlabs liner bibs are excelent
Get something that fits you . To be honest, if you are only out for a morning almost anything will do if they fit. Flashier ones are nice but my experience is that they peak out comfort and quality wise somewhere around the Endura level unless you need something special. EG My Rapha ones are nice but not twice the money of the Endura ones nice.
For a mountain bike, I'd get something like the upper-end DHB Aeron stuff from Wiggle. The waist shorts work pretty well as liners - if you want something cooler, the indoor training shorts they do also work pretty decently outside and are more breathable - and because you're shifting around in and out of the saddle, you don't really need £150 worth of Rapha bib unless you're doing proper huge rides.
I wear bibs on the road, but on the mtb, waist shorts have also worked fine for me and are cooler for your upper body and more convenient all round.
I was off the bike for around 18 months with long covid btw and found the first few rides back slightly sore, but I think that's just lack of conditioning and things sorted out pretty quickly, so things will probably improve with time, though to be fair, I actually lost weight rather than put it on.
Im on the bigger side these days and have two sets of galibier bibs I really like. The other favourite set was from Merlin cycles brief run of Merlin wear stuff.
Many thanks to you all. Will work through these recommendations tonight. Can I also ask if folks use chamois cream? I was wondering if that might help.
I use chamois cream for any rides over about an hour.
I don't use cream on the mountain bike unless it's a proper long day out and then only occasionally. Also, personally I've found thicker stuff like Bum Butter - as sold in the ST shop - and glide-type, stick-applied lubes more effective than creams. A lot of the creams seem to contain all sorts of quite dubious additives and I found I was actually reacting to some of them, which was somewhat counter productive. Obviously it's all quite personal, but I'd happily recommend Bum Butter as a good, non-toxic option.
I use assos cream, always a thin smear even on shorter rides, a bit more for longer rides. I have found that some chamois work with cream better than others, assos and sqlabs chamois's take it well, if the pad surface is more of an open cell foam type material it tends to just soak up loads and feel "sloppy".