Why Are People Afraid of Riding Bikes in Cotton?

There are a few things you learn right away when you start cycling “seriously.” Carbon fiber is the best material for a bicycle. (False.)  You need to use clipless pedals for maximum efficiency. (Double false.)  And of course you should avoid wearing cotton, since it’s a very poor choice when it comes to cycling attire. (Wildly, ridiculously false.)

So what are you supposed to wear to partake in “serious” cycling?  Generally, the answer is one of the various branded forms of spandex, the most widely known being Lycra—the Band-Aid of stretchy clothes in that it has become a byword for it. The reasoning is that the fabric is form-fitting for aerodynamics, it affords you full range of movement due to its stretchiness, and, most importantly, it’s “wicking,” meaning it allows moisture to evaporate quickly, thereby keeping you dry and cool.

Meanwhile, cotton, as your friend who uses clipless pedals and just completed a century (or its 21st century equivalent, a gravel race) on a carbon fiber bicycle will patiently bike-splain to you, is not wicking. Therefore, if you ride in cotton clothing, you’ll get all bogged down with sweat. This can result in chafing and fungus, as well as poor thermoregulation, since if you ride around wet for hours on end you can catch a chill and die, or you’ll never cool off and get heatstroke, I forget which. Maybe it’s both.

Of course, cotton dries just fine, which is why you wear t-shirts all summer long. So how did riding in cotton become the object of the second-most aggressive fear campaign in cycling after riding without helmets? How did we come to the crazy conclusion that it takes a t-shirt (arguably the single-greatest piece of activewear ever invented) a long time to dry—so long that you shouldn’t ever ride in one? Well, it’s tempting to blame Big Oil, since we blame them for everything anyway, and of course spandex is made from petroleum, so making cyclists deathly afraid of cotton is their way of making sure people who ride bikes still consume fossil fuels. But I admit that’s a bit too conspiracy-minded, and as with most things involving cycling the truth is a lot simpler: it’s the power of marketing coupled with the aspiring cyclist’s desire to be seen as doing the right thing.

Now none of this is to say spandex cycling clothing is bad. On the contrary; it’s highly engineered, and as such it’s generally ideal at the more extreme ends of the sport. It would be foolish to deny, for example, that a rider ascending a steep climb 60 miles into a ride on a humid 80-degree day is not going to benefit from a lightweight stretchy bicycling speedsuit—and sure, a lightweight carbon bicycle, and clipless pedals, and hey, what the hell, might as well throw in a power meter since we’re going for max performance here.

However, what I am saying is those same cotton clothes you used to run and jump and play football and baseball and hide-and-seek in and generally wore into the ground when you were a kid still work just as well when you’re an adult. In fact, if you grew up riding a bike you almost certainly did it in a t-shirt and jeans, and fundamentally little has changed since then apart from the fact that when you show up at the trailhead in a t-shirt the people unloading their dual-suspension bikes from their SUVs will probably look at you funny. Yes, cycling clothing is engineered for performance, but it’s also engineered to clearly display sponsor logos, which is a feature very few of us will ever need.

Modern cycling clothing is great, and there are absolutely circumstances in which it will enhance your ride. At the same time it’s often expensive, and extremely limited in utility, and generally one minute crash away from winding up in the trash, unlike your jeans which you can wear until you blow out the crotch—at which point they can be darned and worn again. Not only can riding in the same cotton clothes you wear to clear out the basement or play softball or just hang out can be one of the great joys of cycling (when was the last time you just hopped on a bike and ripped around without worrying about what you were wearing?), but it can also make your fancy specialty clothes last longer.

All I’m saying is go ahead, ride your bike in cotton once in a while. It won’t kill you.