i find the notion of thick chamois and thinly padded saddle pretty absurd (except for weighing ur bike which im guilty of as well). why keep the weight on a moving body that could bunch up, keep sweat, and harder to sow?

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But... it makes your bike lighter!!!

The Santini bibs with "NAT" chamois (gel insert) are significantly heavier (~80g) than my Descente Optima.

@mattiTWOROADS - that sounds interesting. Please keep us posted.

Miss my C6 bib shorts ....

I am already on a carbon shell saddle (the best saddle I have ever used to date) the Flite evolution. What I am experiencing with the chamois is that the sit bone area is way too thick and the multi-density aspect is throwing my whole body forward a bit. I have one pair of bibs left that dont do this and they happen to be the oldest with only a minor change in density throughout (basically what allows it to fold properly). It seems all the bibs I have gotten this year are way too thick in the sit bone area and not even enough throughout. I hate to change saddle position for this issue.
Does anyone know what the Champion System chamois is like these days?

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I have my CS chamois and my Castellii KISS chamois in front of me right now. They are remarkably similar. The CS is a little thicker, but not much, and it is one of my preferred bibshorts. I think CS has two chamois options, and this is the "less deluxe" one. I can't remember the names.
Both the CS and the KISS have the very nice, soft, red inner surface material. The CS is larger in area and has a liitle more fancy embossing.

AFAICT the chamois in those is about 15mm thick; for me thin means about 5mm (definitely no more than 10mm).

http://www.nalini.com/fondelli-EN.asp?t=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here you can see several Nalini chamois. They listed all of them with 8mm thickness but different densities according to their function. But they don't list every kind of chamois they produce. The PTN one I was talking about is very similar with the PTN 9 but the black material for the tights is usually white (a different material I guess). If I remember correctly, they are called PTN 1 and PTN Naturale.

Desoto makes a "tribib" that has a smaller than normal chamois and a bibbed tri short that has a fleece chamois that if its like my tri shorts is very thin.

Desoto makes top quality products but they aren't cheap.

I actually prefer a slimmer chamois too. Loving the Hincapie custom velocity line. Also available regualar retail as the BMC kit, the Gran Premio and I think the Equipe.

Got some santini geranio (or something like that) with the ptn chamois on order. Got my fingers crossed.

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I recently discovered the Castelli Kiss3 pad comes in two varieties, a thin and thick version. Otherwise identical, they have a very different feel. The Ergo Tre bibshorts are very similar to the Nero Classics, with the thin Kiss3 pad. The Velocissimo Due and the Garmin Team bibshorts have a thicker Kiss3 pad, with thick padding at the sit bones. The Progetto X2 pad, found on Castelli's high end Body Paint and Free Aero Race shorts, is even thicker.

Perhaps some people prefer different pad thicknesses due to weight or saddle differences. I'm lightweight and ride a Selle SMP saddle, and I like thin pads. I also like tight shorts, which holds the pad in place better.

The De Soto 400 Mile bibshorts has a very thin pad, but still comfortable on long rides.

Good to know about the Kiss3. I had kind of given up on it as an option after trying it in a cheapish pair of castelli's recently. Now I know to check more closely. Which reminds me, Castelli low-end stuff is junk.
Anyway, the Santini PTN chamois is very very nice and overall the Geranio bib is good. The chamois has a great feel to it. Gonna look for another pair! Thanks for the suggestions!

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Based on the postings here I bought 3 Castelli bib shorts all with KISS3 chamois (taking advantage of a 50% off sale) -- all of them are different. Here's a brief description of my experience:

Ergo Tre: not too thick (maybe around 10mm?), soft (easy to compress).
Presto: thicker than Ergo, soft as Ergo.
Velocissimio Gruppo: about as thick as Presto, but "denser".

I like the Ergo best, the Presto is ok, and I probably will return the Velocissimio because the chamois is just too "noticeable", I always feel its presence -- for me a good chamois is something that I don't notice while riding.

I bought a couple of pairs of NOS Performance Bike Team bibs on eBay a couple of years ago. They have synthetic Chamois (the actual critter skin) with cloth backing. Thin and comfy. From studying their present offerings, don't think they offer anything similar now, though.

Another one for castelli