Thanks all for your experiences and suggestions!
I wish I could sew them shut myself, and I have learned to do some suturing in the OR now (reluctantly), but I definitely cannot sew anything on actually clothing.
I hear ya on the cheap zippers... I have replace a few but it has been super expensive- $20 for the crappy light weight ones! I can't believe it is cheaper in SF, that amazes me!
As far as the tights over bibshorts idea, that is a definite no go for me and I personally do not recommend this to anyone. I used to do it in the Bay Area as the days where you needed actual tights were few and far between and I hadn't invested in anything else, but leads to the same kind of badness that wearing shorts as opposed to bibshorts leads to, except raised to some power. You have 2 layers of friction and bunching and extra seams layered on seams etc- Matt and Patrick, you must have highly resilient skin!
Thanks for the defeet suggestion Kitto, I will look into that. I guess I also really need to pull the knee warmers up basically to my hips. I agree that that DOES seem to help and they don't seem to fall down as much (well, before... because now I think they are just completely stretched out and dead), but then literally all they cover is my knees. Also, my bibshorts still ride UP then on top of them... despite supposedly having grippers. I guess the bibshorts ride up to an extent even on skim, though to more tolerably.
I'm increasingly thinking that Darrin, your point is relaly well taken- for arm warmers there is actually a lot of utility I think because there are times where I might want them just for portions of the ride and take them on and off. But for knee warmers, the reality is that if I wear them I don;t take them off, and so I guess I would be better off with bibknickers for those days. The problem is that it is already hard enough to find women's bibshorts, and it is super hard to find women's bibknickers. The 2 bibknickers I have are men's capo XS. I don't mind getting men's, but these have bigger bulkier chammies than I would like.
So anyone have suggestions on bibknickers that they like (any weight, taking Darrin's point, they don;t need to be heavy weight because if it is cold enough like it is here, I will need to be wearing tights and have a different approach) that have a thin and not bulky chammy? Actually, for that matter, same question on your regular bibshorts- any brands/models that you know to be realtively thin and not bulky in the chammy department? Good to know for when I need to get new bibshorts as I have no problem trying men's.
(In case any women are reading this thread and have similar issues, I can recommend Santini bibshorts as being the most comfortable I have tried, though only the ones made for their UK stom out breast cancer team or whatever it is called.)