Sooner or later a pant leg drifts into the chain. The mark it leaves is not ordinary dirt. Chain lube is oil, and by the time it reaches your pants it has picked up road grit and fine metal from the drivetrain. Water alone barely moves it, and heat locks it into the fibers. The good news is that a fresh chain mark comes out most of the time if you handle it in the right order.

Riding clothes get judged on the bike, but most of us try them on standing still in front of a mirror. That tells you how a pair of pants looks, not how it moves. This short routine takes about two minutes and covers the positions that matter, so you know before your first session whether a size is right.

The way you finish the hem of a pair of riding pants does two jobs at once. On the bike, it keeps fabric away from the chain and the pedal pins. Off the bike, it sets the whole look, from loose and easy to tight and tidy. Here are the cuffs riders actually use, and when each one makes sense.