About 6 months ago I had a serious mtb crash and fractured the neck of my femur. I have also experienced a few other dingers over the years. I have been looking for some protective shorts since that time. I tried a pair from POC which were disappointing. Onto the G-Form compression cycling shorts. These are excellent, they look and feel like a quality cycling short, good chamois pad, machine washable, line dry, light. The hip protection area is articulated and is a soft material which stiffens upon impact. It is barely noticeable while riding. There is also tailbone protection. They can be used as is or under baggies for mountain biking. You can also get them without the chamois pad for non cycling activities. Made in USA.

moe

Thanks moe, not a heavy biker, but good to know those are available.

Hern, I know you're into football (soccer), at the World Cup they provided some of the teams with shin guards using the same protective material. Pele appears on their website.

What was it about the POC's (VPD 2.0) that you didn't like?

They were a bit heavy, about a pound, cheap chamois pad, non machine washable, legs cut too short, weird material. But the biggest problem is they didn't feel natural while pedaling, it's like they just sewed 2 pieces of their protective material into the hip area and that was it. I'm sure their material works well in a crash, POC has a good reputation. But I couldn't overlook the other issues.

Edit, because the material wasn't like normal lycra, I couldn't get a good fit, medium was too small, large too big.

Hi I am brand new to the forum I am just over 8 months post op left hip.  I bought a pair of the POC vpd shorts for protection, as in the past would crash from time to time (crashing is part of mountain biking).  They protect very well, and don't cause problems when pedaling but they are extremely hot, and not very breath able .  So hot that I have only wear them on shuttled runs.

I'll check out G-Form.  I just posted a couple times about POC VPD shorts.  I love mine.  I wear them outside my real bike shorts as the padding in the POC is not enough for long rides.  I don't care what that looks like.  Crutches look worse.  Now, I don't mountain bike, I road ride, and while there is less falling in road cycling, the surfaces are usually harder, so I think the best padding available is worth it.  Here's my anecdote:

While I did cycle some during recovery, I have started real road riding again (left BHR Sept 2013) and had concerns about falling on my hip. I read in one of these posts about POC VPD shorts and got some for peace of mind (there may be other brands, but the VPD technology sounded serious, so I went with them).

Now here's the thing--in 8 years of riding, I had never fallen--seriously, never, always successfully caught myself in time.  But this past weekend, I went straight over, smack onto my left resurfaced hip (and apparently fell perfectly because I never let go of my handlebar grip; was avoiding very fast motorcycles that appeared out of nowhere while crossing a street; had a partly clipped in, strongly breaking thing occur so fast I didn't know what happened).  And, I had ZERO pain, none at all.  It was like nothing happened!  Well, actually, my left hand became really sore, but is now clearing up after some icing.  I was so relieved and I LOVE my VPD shorts. I highly recommend them.