GROUP TEST
We fasten the ly on 15 pairs of baggies and put in the miles in search of the ultimate pair of cool and comfortable trail shorts
Trail shorts – we pull on 15 pairs of baggies to help you find the best buy for long-ride comfort and unrestricted movement
Like Victorian children, a good pair of biking shorts should be seen and not heard. Well, replace ‘heard’ with ‘restrict your riding’ and you’ve pretty much got it. Mountain bikers wear baggy trail shorts for a number of reasons: durability in the inevitable crashes, style/modesty (pay attention, roadies!) and off-bike versatility – we spend more time on our feet than road riders, so benefit from shorts that reflect this. As such, you want hard-wearing fabrics, a few pockets and a more casual look, but none of this should be at the expense of comfort or restrict your pedalling movement.
Desired attributes will vary according to your riding demands. Gravity-orientated riders need heavier-duty shorts that resist abrasion from crashes and close brushes with trees, plus have extra room for bulkier knee pads underneath. If you put more self-propelled effort into your riding, you’ll likely want a stretchier, lighter-weight fabric, but the legs should again be long enough to avoid a ‘gaper gap’ above pads. Crucially, both types prevent you looking like a Lycra-clad Eurovision entrant from the 1980s. Although you’ll likely want a few pockets, we’d recommend restricting these to pre- and post-ride use, or for casual rides to the pub at most. The reason for this is simple – if you crash, at least one of your legs is likely to hit the ground, and if you have a phone on that side, it’ll come out looking like a glitterball. Worse, if you’ve thrown your keys into a thigh pocket, you might find yourself sporting some interesting new piercings.
Some form of waist adjustment is essential, instead of relying on external belts or suffering shorts that continually need hiking-up. We prefer external Velcro straps to ones inside the waistband, as these inevitably curl and wear, and end up sticking into your side or shredding liner shorts where the Velcro is exposed. Better still can be locking buckles on integrated webbing belts. You want some elastic in the waistband too, so you can pull the shorts on and off easily without having to adjust them each time.
With these basics in mind, we called in a selection of what appeared to be the best trail shorts available, then put time in on the bikes, off the bikes and just living in the shorts. We watched how they washed, how fast they dried and how they bounced back from some pretty foul riding conditions.