Giordana FR-C Pro Review

We had a good time in these shorts. They're high-performers that deserve a lot of praise despite a handful of drawbacks. We spent weeks riding in them and doing our research so that we could break them down across our metrics. We spend the rest of this review doing just that.

Performance Comparison

Padding and Protection

The FR-C Pro shorts use Giordana's premium Cirro S chamois. It boasts all sorts of innovations and advancements to improve its performance. We'll skip the full run-down and just give you the boil-down. It uses an upper layer of microfiber with Aloe Vera infusion meant to cool, soothe, and protect against bacteria. We weren't able to culture any bacteria to test this, but the chamois seems to retain less odor, and we haven't noticed any sort of irritation after riding that would indicate bacteria colonizing in the shorts.

The padding is a little wider and thicker than is ideal. It's still a great pair of shorts but tends to become a little uncomfortable over time. The chamois does a good job of covering any bit of your body that comes in contact with the saddle in padding, but at its thickest, you get 14mm of foam, so you get that sitting on a brick effect after a good 90 minutes or longer, especially if you've been in the saddle grinding away. Lighter or wider-set riders may do better in these shorts.

The thing we did like was the Copa Mondiale (World Cup…nothing aggrandizing about that name) at the front of the shorts. Hilarious name aside, the design does what it's meant to do: provides a nice, sculpted cubby to keep the bits sorted and safe, so you have less adjusting to do on the road. It's nice…

Comfort and Fit

The first thing to be discussed with any shorts is securing the waist. The shorts have two ways to do that. The first is the band that wraps around just the rear portion of the shorts. It connects to the Ametista Carbon waist panel in the front, with most of the fastening happening along the back.

To a lesser extent, the Ametista Carbon waist panel acts as a double-up in the back. It's more to improve your form, in our opinion. It sort of helps you keep your core tight (suck it in). But it's also a lot more compressed contact area to keep the shorts appended to your body.

To get their superior compression and second-skin-feel, they use the new HC50 High Compression Power Lycra. It's still the standard mix of 80/20 nylon to Lycra, but the Lycra has a unique 50 thread count. The result is a softer feel against the skin while maintaining firm, compressive support to make you feel a little harder, faster.

Similar attention went into the cuffs. They're 190 E woven elastic cuffs with a nice wide arrangement of silicone grippers. It's compressive, but gentle, making them among the most comfortable out there, without losing efficacy. We got very little slippage, even on longer rides.

Breathability

The HC50 High Compression Power Lycra is very good on pulling moisture out, and the tight fit helps that. Even stuck inside on the trainer sans fans, we didn't find them to be too terribly bad. The chamois has quite a few attributes that improve its moisture management as well. The padding has multiple layers, including two open cell memory foam layers near the top that improve ventilation. There's even a final layer of non-absorbent memory foam to help move the moisture out. It's effective. We didn't get that sitting on a sponge effect that tends to happen with these bigger pads. You should be able to stay reasonably dry in these shorts and get them air-dried fairly quickly.

Efficiency and Pedal Friendliness

The shorts are designed to fit the body's curve as you're riding. That means while you're hunched over, the shorts are not pulling off your body or slipping down obnoxiously. They fit like a second skin with just a little more support to keep you feeling fast and strong.

The unique HC50 High Compression Power Lycra does a lot of the heavy lifting here. It has a high concentration of nylon, keeping it tough and compressive while its Lycra component is 50 thread count, so it's flexible and soft. The result is excellent performance out on the road. It feels clean and tight. That's aided by the 190 E woven elastic leg cuffs and their silicone grippers. There's very little slippage with just enough compression to feel nice.

Durability

They use their new HC50 High Compression Power Lycra to get a good mix of compression and flexible fit. Its makeup is 80% polyamide and 20% elastane, so the fabric is a little tougher than average with the higher polyamide (nylon) content. It also uses an anti-abrasion seat panel to save you from wearing holes in your bottom with the saddle.

The biggest area for concern is in the exposed seams. Even after just 4 or 5 hours of riding, the threading started failing all around the lower section of the Ametista Carbon waist panel. In time this will also become a problem where the inner thighs rub against the saddle, and the threads holding the chamois in place will begin to wear. Otherwise, we weren't able to find too terribly much that would slow these shorts down. Just be sure to take care of them and buy the right size.

Style

We like that they're more form-fit than a lot of shorts. That's at least partially owing to their HC50 High Compression Power Lycra, which compresses and complements the body like a second skin. The overall design is meant to perfectly cover your working parts and remove every single crease or fold in the fabric, which it does quite well.

On the point of form-fit is the Ametista Carbon waist panel. It basically helps you suck in that gut so your riding paunch doesn't precede you in that unflattering way cycling position has about it for most of us.t improves your appearance of being a trim, athletic guy, whether or not that's accurate.

Call it machismo or fay, but the only real stylistic sticking point we had here was that the legs were a little long. At the very least, it established a much lower tan line just above the knee. In our view, there's a nice middle way between the Europeans and the Freds somewhere between the second and lower third of the thigh that keeps you looking serious and athletic without going overboard.

Value

Sure, you get a lot with the FR-C Pro shorts, but we feel they're really going at something of a premium for the shorts. Riders ought to look for them at a discount before jumping.

Conclusion

The Giordana FR-C Pro Shorts were our go-to for trainer rides and shorter real-world rides. The padding is supple enough to get you through a good 90 minutes of saddle grinding inside or a 2+ hours of forgiving riding out on the road. The HC50 fabric is also quite nice. It's compressive and supportive without feeling too restrictive, and you don't get too much bunching. It's not perfect though. You'll get some slippage of the waist at some point in your ride, especially if you're in and out of the saddle. But that's just the way it goes with shorts-only. The silicone-studded cuffs aren't too bad either. They hold for most of the ride, but start to slip after 75-90 minutes. All said, they're really solid shorts that most riders would be happy wearing.