The Finest Ladies’s Mountain Bike Shorts of 2023

There’s nothing extra annoying than a pair of ill-fitting bike shorts. You need to have the ability to deal with the experience, not struggle together with your shorts. Girl shredders used to should make do with a pair of shrunken males’s shorts, however these days are lengthy gone.

We’re glad to report that there’s now all kinds of biking shorts made particularly for girls. We’ve been driving trails throughout the U.S., together with a number of miles in Oregon and Colorado with take a look at notes from expert riders, newbies, {and professional} mountain bikers.

And whereas there isn’t a single pair of shorts that works for each physique and driving model, we’ve included a wide range of choices. Under, you’ll discover the perfect shorts and chamois that can make hitting the paths that rather more enjoyable. Get able to go well with up and experience out.

For extra details about girls’s mountain bike shorts and the varied design options to contemplate, take a look at our purchaser’s information and FAQ. Additionally, take a look at our comparability chart to steer your decision-making. In any other case, we divided this listing into helpful classes so you possibly can simply discover the perfect girls’s mountain bike shorts in your wants.

Editor’s Be aware: We up to date our Ladies’s Mountain Bike Shorts information on November 22, 2023, to verify every overview has probably the most up-to-date data.

The Finest Ladies’s Mountain Bike Shorts of 2023

Ladies’s Bike Shorts Comparability Chart

Scroll proper to view the entire columns: Value, Inseam, Pockets, Liner, Materials.

 How We Examined Ladies’s Mountain Bike Shorts

The GearJunkie testing group is made up of novice to knowledgeable highway cyclists, bikepackers, mountain bikers, and racers. We’ve ridden cross-country and steep alpine trails all around the West, together with in competitions, whereas bikepacking throughout the Rockies and on self-supported journeys just like the 142-mile Kokopelli Path.

Ladies’s mountain bike shorts are important for staying comfy whereas in movement and loading the bikes, hanging out with pals, or establishing camp after overlaying miles. Over time, we’ve examined many various mountain bike shorts, and this listing contains the perfect of the perfect.

To level, Senior Editor Morgan Tilton has examined mountain bike shorts for near 320 miles of rides with 47,000 ft of ascent/descent in 2023 alone. Apart from testing bike gear, she helps handle the gear-testing flock.

Whereas testing girls’s mountain bike shorts within the subject, we assessed sturdiness, total match, ease of motion, safety, cloth really feel, breathability, and performance. We’ve examined shorts whereas pedaling in blustery wind, intense solar, rain, and hail storms from close-to-town singletrack to distant backcountry tundra.

Past our group’s expertise, we additionally thought of the most well-liked, extremely rated, acclaimed, and bestselling shorts available on the market in addition to a broad vary of value factors, options, and types to fulfill the wants of assorted varieties of bikers.

Purchaser’s Information: Select Ladies’s Mountain Bike Shorts

Chamois

One of many first items of recommendation we give first-time riders is to exit and buy a pair of shorts with a very good chamois. It’s the one most essential (and infrequently missed) piece of drugs that can make or break your experience.

In any case, we’re speaking about your butt right here! For those who’ve ever skilled a saddle sore, you recognize what we’re speaking about. And when you haven’t, let’s attempt to preserve it that manner with a few of our favourite shorts.

Pronounced SHAM-mee, the chamois is the pad that’s sewn right into a biking quick to guard the groin space towards the saddle. The chamois is constructed with a pad that has cushioned foam with a variety of densities — some designs provide extra cushion than others. Sometimes, the supplies additionally wick moisture and are tender.

In mountain bike shorts, the chamois may be built-in into the quick, however usually the chamois is built-in into a brief, tight-fitting liner worn beneath the outside bike shorts. Even when a brief doesn’t have a chamois, it most probably is gusseted on the crotch to permit for consolation and stretch within the saddle.

Carrying a chamois as an alternative of standard underwear additionally eliminates seams, which might rub and trigger chafing.

Materials

As the value goes up on mountain bike shorts, a part of that tag is overlaying the improve of extra premium supplies.

To level, the Norrøna Fjora Flex and Norrøna Fjora Heavy Obligation have a tricky, stretchy cloth constituted of an artificial mix that provides wind and water resistance, plus it options 50% recycled fibers and a PFC-free DWR. The Shredly MTB Quick feels softer and lighter — it’s made with a recycled polyester-spandex mix and prices much less.

The Wild Rye Freel is constructed with a WR Duraflex Nylon (88% nylon, 12% spandex), which is hard towards reachy trailside branches. Comparatively, the Wild Rye Kaweah is made with the WR Bomber Stretch Poly (90% polyester, 10% spandex), a mix that’s nonetheless sturdy however not as powerful and at a lower cost level ($99 versus $124).

Waistband

A variety of waistband designs exist, and they’re distinctive for every quick. What’s most essential is that the waistband doesn’t fold over or pop open or pinch your decrease abdomen when you lean ahead in your bike.

It’s additionally good to have a waistband with adjustability so you possibly can forgo a belt however tighten your shorts up as wanted, particularly if the experience is especially lengthy, sweat-ridden, or wet.

Among the many most minimalist waistband design is the Pearl Izumi Prospect 2/1 Quick, which has a large, stretchy elastic band that slides simply up and down — no fuss in any respect. The Velocio Path Quick additionally has a narrower waistband that’s glossy, however with a zipper and slide-in button plus an built-in slender belt to assist tighten up the waist.

With a average waistband, the Wild Rye shorts have a double-snap, zip closure, and huge width that’s stretchy plus belt loops when you determine to go that route.

For probably the most adjustability, you possibly can attain for the Norrøna Fjora Flex or Liv Passo Dishevelled Shorts, each of which have double-snap closures with a zipper. The Passo options belt loops plus an built-in Velcro belt, so you possibly can swap it up.

The Fjora doesn’t have belt loops, however the built-in Velcro belt is huge in comparison with the opposite designs we’ve chosen, and the bottom of the band is higher-waisted. Contemplate reaching for the next or huge waistband when you put on a hip pack or backpack whereas on a experience, too.

Pockets

Pockets may be useful for a spot to rapidly stuff your experience gloves on a snack break or to heat up your fingers whereas tailgating. Different pockets secured with a zipper could be a great spot to carry a telephone or bank card, whereas pockets with a snap closure could be a good place for a snack bar.

Some mountain bike quick designs include minimal pockets just like the Pearl Izumi Prospect 2/1 Quick, which doesn’t have a pocket within the exterior shell (there’s solely a slide-in pocket with no zipper within the detachable inside liner). Different shorts provide tons of pocket choices just like the Liv Passo Dishevelled Shorts, which have two again pockets, two facet pockets, and a further pocket with a zipper closure.

Most shorts provide one thing in-between with a mean of three pockets just like the Wild Rye Kaweah, which has two hand pockets and one low-down zippered pocket.

In a well-constructed improve, the Shredly MTB Quick now contains a zippered pocket and the position is greater on the thigh to assist take away the jostle of a telephone when you pedal. In distinction, many zippered pockets on different shorts are down decrease on the leg and inevitably swing round when you experience.

Inseam Size 

The very best inseam size comes down to non-public choice, the kind of experience you wish to do, and the weather you’ll be in. For those who’re occurring a protracted experience in sunny, uncovered (as in, no tree protection or shade) terrain, contemplate sporting longer shorts to guard the tops of your legs from getting sunburned.

Longer shorts also can defend the facet of the legs from thick brush or tree branches or bugs when you’re driving in a buggy space or on a wild, unkempt path.

For those who’re bikepacking or alpine driving on steep slopes and getting on and off your bike, the longer cloth also can assist defend your legs from getting scraped up.

The inseam lengths of the ladies’s mountain bike shorts in our information vary from 6 inches to fifteen inches with 9 to 12 inches being the candy spot for many path rides.

Then, with finely tailor-made inseams to varied feminine physique shapes, Shredly gives an adjusted inseam size for every design and every dimension inside that design. As an illustration, the Curvy 7-inch quick has a 7-inch inseam throughout all sizes, whereas the MTB Quick, featured amongst our high picks, has a unique inseam size throughout the sizes:

• XS (00): 9.75″
• XS (0): 10″
• S (2): 10.25″
• S (4): 10.5″
• M (6): 10.75″
• M (8): 11″
• L (10): 11.25″
• XL-3XL (12-24): 11.5″

Match and Dimension Vary

Most manufacturers provide a dimension run from not less than dimension 0 to dimension 18.

Velocio gives a good broader dimension vary (XXS-3XL). Extra particularly, the Velocio XXS suits a 22- to 24-inch waist and 31.5- to 33.5-inch hip dimension. In distinction, Wild Rye, for example, begins at a dimension 0, which inserts a 25.5-inch waist and 36.5-inch hip.

Shredly additionally gives a higher number of sizes with a 00 to 24 dimension run (XS-3XL), which begins at a 24-inch waist and 33-inch hips and goes as much as a 43-inch waist and 52-inch hips. Kitsbow’s shorts additionally provide a much wider dimension vary with waist sizes from 26-37 inches. 

Remember to double-check the scale chart for every pair of shorts you contemplate shopping for, and to measure your self earlier than making an order or cease by a retailer to attempt on a pair first. Mountain bike quick sizes and the exact measurements for every dimension usually are not common and differ throughout manufacturers.

Value

Most ladies’s mountain bike shorts hover round $100. That features Kaweah ($99), Passo ($100), Membership Trip Eden Shorts ($100), and Shredly MTB Quick ($108) in our information.

Mountain bike shorts with a extra premium development that’s even harder towards the weather and a beatdown embrace the Wild Rye Freel Shorts ($124), Norrøna Fjora Flex ($139), Velocio Path Quick ($169), and Kitsbow Madrone Quick ($169).

It may be difficult to search out great-fitting, well-made mountain bike shorts under $100, however a few our high selections embrace the Prospect ($75) and Filth Roamer ($59-99).

FAQ