Chicknlegs Men's 2" Split Shorts

Comfortable and colorful shorts for running and hiking in warm weather. A bit slow to dry after a swim.

On day 5 of our 2025 hike of the NH-ME Appalachian Trail, in sun and passing cloud on the summit of Mt. Moosilauke, my wife and I met a thru-hiker named Pickles. True to the name, he was wearing shorts emblazoned with a pattern of cartoon pickles with googly eyes:

In answer to our admiring questions, he said he’d picked them up at AT Trail Days on his way through Damascus in May. Those may have been the first, but certainly not the last, Chicknlegs shorts on hikers we met along the way. Since the tattered old Nike running shorts I’d chosen for the effort suffered a new tear in those first few weeks, I decided to mail order a pair for myself.

In keeping with my penchant for colorful Hawaiian shirts, I went for pink flamingos on a black background, without the googly eyes-- wish I still had my old pink flamingos t-shirt to match.I picked them up at a resupply after crossing into Maine and wore them pretty much every day after that. Chicknlegs offers up a wide range of other colorful patterns and solids, including solid black for any Goth hikers or runners out there. They also make a longer 4” shorts and over-the-knee half tights.

The outer shorts are 100% polyester, the inners 90% and 10% elastane, potential sources of microplastics I guess (like most outdoor clothing an gear these days), but tough enough to get through rocky-rootsy Maine without a scratch.

The wide elastic waistband is snug and comfortable on the hips. The baggy outer allows for plenty of airflow on the move.

On me the inner is snug enough to keep – ahem – everything in place without feeling too tight on the edges. I’ve had other shorts that have failed on one or the other of those criteria.

The zippered back pocket is too small for a phone, but I wouldn’t want anything big slapping on my butt or tugging down anyway. It could hold a credit card or a couple bucks for picking up refreshment along the way. The small inside pocket is a good place to keep car keys safe.

I often started out the day on chilly mornings wearing my Chicknlegs like boxers under my zip-leg hiking pants, ready for a quick conversion to bare legs after warming up. On raining mornings I might start out wearing them under rain pants, ready to go bare-legged if the day was warm enough. At river crossings I’d wear them in for a swim, even if no one was around, just to rinse the sweat out. The waistband and outer fabric were a bit slow to dry, sometimes still feeling damp after a couple more hours on the trail.

Although these shorts haven’t seen much use during the autumn months in Norway, I recently wore them comfortably, stylishly, and happily on some day hikes and trail runs in warm conditions on the Canary Islands. Flamingos forever!

Background

I have about 70 summers and a few desert winters worth of wearing shorts of all kinds, from baggy swimming trunks to tattered cut-offs, on streets, trails, and beaches in various places around the world. I've been a trail runner for over 15 years, mostly in lined running shorts like these.