Padded shorts for snowboarding are an extremely wise choice for the inexperienced border who is just learning how balance on his/her edges AND for the more experienced boarder who is pushing the envelope in order to ride new terrain and attempt pipes, rails and aerials at the park.
#1: How Much Snowboarding Lower Body Protection Do You Need?
Padded snowboarding shorts protect varying combinations of your quads, hips, buttocks, and tailbone.
Every model is a little different. With padded shorts in particular, a picture tells a thousand words. When you look at the product photographs on our website, look specifically at the size of the pads. Some shorts have very large, thick pads. Some sport smaller, thinner ones. As for tailbone protection, some shorts have a soft pad sewn in place, and others have a hard shell shield, which is sometimes removable.
- Thickness of Pads.
Padded shorts have pads that range from ¼ inch to ½ inch thick. Thicker pads offer more snowboarding safety protection, but with additional bulk and weight.
- Pad Coverage.
Padded shorts are tailored for different uses and preferences, so you can have pads in different locations. Padding is typically important for hips, tailbone, upper thighs, sits bones, knees and hip pointers.
- Pad Material.
Padded shorts pads are either soft foam or a combination of hard plastic and soft foam. Foam softens the impact and disperses the impact force over a wider area. Hard plastic also disperses impact forces, and also provide some puncture protection from things like rails.
- Extra Tailbone Protection?
Nearly all padded snowboard shorts offer some tailbone protection with soft foam tailbone pads. Several models of padded shorts also offer additional protection with hard plastic tailbone shields. The plastic material adds an additional layer of snowboard protective gear for those backward falls, and tend to be a very popular feature with our customers.
#2: Do You Want Your Snowboard Padded Shorts to Also Have a Padded Crotch?
All padded shorts come with a chamois (or crotch pad), which leads some people to believe they can also wear these padded shorts while cycling. This is really not the case. The chamois in a snowboard padded short is sewn in
specifically for privacy. It is not meant to double as a padded chamois, like you would find in a true cycling short.
Could you ride a bike in your padded snowboard shorts for five or ten miles? Sure. Would you be comfortable like you would be with a padded, cycling chamois after, say, 20 miles? Not likely.
On the same note, there are many mountain bike and BMX padded shorts that offer great leg, hip and tailbone padding for snowboarding, however, these bike specific padded shorts come with the aforementioned padded chamois, which might be bulky, hot and uncomfortable to wear while snowboarding.
#4: Do You Want Your Snowboarding Padded Shorts to be Machine Washable?
Although we do not recommend machine washing snowboard padded shorts, some models do allow for machine washing. However, to get the maximum longevity out of this type of clothing, we recommend you
hand-wash them and line-dry them. Never do we recommend you machine-dry any Lycra-based material. More than anything else, the standard laundry room dryer is the enemy of your Lycra-based product. Please, always remember to line-dry a garment like this!
#5: Do You Want a Gender-Specific Cut in Your Snowboarding Padded Shorts?
It seems that most padded shorts are cut for teenage boys - slim from waist to hips. If you're looking for a cut that is more tailored for snowboarding safety for women, look for a
women's specific model or words like "more generous cut" in the item title and description.
