Update and confession, 31 August 2007: I now own and love a pair of these, and they are the best bike pants on earth. It took me years to get over my prejudice and get them, though --- I'd been keeping most of my regular-length pants rolled up all the time and it was just silly and then we were going on a long bike trip adventures and I needed something, preferably with cargo pockets, to shield the world from the awesome power of my spandex-clad ass. Sigh. Look at me, eating my snarky 2001 words:
Also called clamdiggers, according to the catbox. I think I'd hate them a lot less if the terminally perky voiceovers to those godforsaken Old Navy commercials had to utter what sounds for all the world like a nasty word for lesbian.
Munch, munch, munch. Okay, I probably still hate Old Navy commercials but I don't watch enough TV to know for sure these days.
As it is, I've got a friend who calls these shants, because "they're too long to be shorts, too short to be pants, and I shan't wear them."
I still think this is funny, and I still call them "shants" even though I wear them.
My all-time favorite (*toxic sarcasm*) permutation of this style are boot-cut capris: bell bottoms that only come to mid-calf. What a completely pointless waste of fabric, without a trace of style to justify it.
Okay, my taste may not be the greatest but I still think these are ugly as sin. Ugly sin.