In fact the current style of bike shorts owes its existence to this factor. They were once much more brief until a tragic disaster in the 1923 Tour of Albania. It would appear that, due to the rather primitive food preparation conditions, excess abdominal gas was the norm. However, this was not too much of a problem until they were riding along a narrow, cliff edge road above the Adriatic.
As some of you may know, early cyclists often smoked, even while riding. You can imagine what happened when one of them lit up in circumstances as described above. An enormous explosion ripped thro' the peloton and loosened some rock above the road and almost the entire race was thrown into the sea.
Cycle clothing manufacturers sought to deal with this potential problem by increasing the length of the legs and the height of the waist of shorts. The advertising slogan for the new shorts was later ripped off by a lager brewer - "High knickers breach the farts that other pairs cannot reach"