RedWhite's Long Distance Chamois - An Overview
RedWhite Customers tend to be experienced riders who tackle Brevets and ultra distance races. You can get a taste of the mileage they do by checking out Customer Stories.
To cater to such mile-munching monsters, a RedWhite bibshort is built using a chamois that is custom developed for the riding they do.
Itās quite difficult to describe what makes our bibshortsā chamois special in a short sentence or paragraph. Hence the purpose of this article.
This technical article will cover the following characteristics of our chamois that makes it a favourite amongst our AUDAX and Brevet racing customers :
- Materials
- Density
- Thickness
- Construction - Thermic Moulding
Materials
A RedWhite cycling chamois is made of 6 different materials :
- Anti-bacterial technical fabric ā used at the top layer that contacts the body
- Medium density foam
- Ultra-high density foam
- Backing foam ā used at the base of the chamois
- Super-elastic lycra āĀ the final layer that comes in contact with the saddle
- Elastic Mesh Cup foam ā the black insert in menās chamois for groin support.Ā This feature is removed for the womenās bibshort.
Chamois Density
When you hold a RedWhite bibshort and give the chamois a squeeze, youāll notice how resistant the material is. This differs from most other cycling bibs you own.
As your rideās miles chalk up, youāll notice that our chamois doesnāt progressively flatten out and continues to provide support. This is important because aĀ material thatĀ maintains its shape provides a high degree of protection from road-buzz. This keeps your posterior fresh when out on Ā a long day.Ā Nothing is worse than getting back on the bike after a cafe stop, only to feel your sore sit-bones
For the Women's BibshortsĀ , we utilised the same foam densities and layup as The Men's Bibshorts, to give our female customers an identical riding experience. The womenās chamois does differ from the menās version in 3 ways :
- No elastic mesh cup (required for cupping menās genitalia only).
- Minimal raised features on surface that contacts the rider (to reduce chafing).
- Shorter and narrower perineum padding than menās version (customised for female anatomy)
Chamois Thickness
A high density chamois is pretty uncomfortable without a degree of plushness to it.Ā One of the biggest problems with high density chamoisāĀ is that they can be too firm, causing any vibration (road-buzz) to be directly transmitted through them. We wanted to use a dense material for our chamoisā to prevent it from āflattening-outā, but at the same time, we didnāt want it to feel like a hard piece of thick fabric.
The answer was to achieve a delicate balance between density and thickness.Ā
Itsā no secret that our chamoisā are thick. In fact, thatās the first thing all our customers notice. However, if you squeeze it, youāll notice that the shaped padding on the sit-bone area is made up of 2 layers :
The Top-LayerĀ comes into immediate contact with your sit-bones is less dense than the Mid-Layer Ā below. The foam here compresses slightly more to provide that āarmchairā feel that we are well known for. The Mid-Layer on the other hand is 50% thinner and 200% more dense than the Top-Layer and acts as a primary support layer that prevents the chamois from compressing too much over the course of a long ride. It gives our chamois itās meaty feel.
The combination of low thickness, high density and high-thickness, lower density creates a thick and comfortable chamois that is extremely plush, yet resilient enough to keep on supporting you throughout your long-ride without compressing.
For the Women's Bibshorts, we retained the same architecture, foam densities and layup. However, we changed the order of the foam layers by placing the thinnest layer on top with the mid and top layers coming below that. This was done to reduce the raised features on the contact surface and keeping it as smooth as possible.
By doing this, we limit the possibility of chafing and āpinchingā, common problems with raised features on many womenās chamois.
Construction - Thermic Moulding
Ā
Our chamois are moulded into a 1 piece construction using a process called āThermic Mouldingā. In this process, the layers of foam are placed into a custom mould which compresses and heats the layers to 190 deg C gently. The compression and the heat causes the foams and fabric to fuse together into 1 layer. The chamois feels like a 1-piece construction rather than "multi-layered & glued-together". It also lasts much longer without flattening out and feeling āfatiguedā.
