Tweaking Saddles

“Yesterday, I stopped at the new bike shop for some lube,” I said as I passed my wife while out on a morning ride. “They’ve got some saddles in there you should check out.”

“That’s OK, I feel pretty good now,” she replied.

Wow, that’s a turnaround. Just last week she was complaining that her saddle was so uncomfortable that she wanted to get a new one. Why the sudden change of heart?

Well, after she complained last week, I took a look at the saddle. It’s the original Trek gel that came with the bike when we bought it in 1992. But it hadn’t been on the bike for some years — not until I put it back on after the saddle she’d been riding failed on a New Year’s Day ride. As I suspected, there was a problem with the saddle’s set up. The nose was sticking up. I must not have tightened the set screw tight enough when I installed the saddle, and her riding had pushed down the back, and pushed the nose up.

I got out the carpenter’s level and set about correcting the problem. Just before I finished, Pat came out of the house to take a look.

“It’s perfectly level now,” I told her.

“You know, I’d like it if you lowered the nose a little bit from where it is.” she said.

I complied. “It’s half a bubble down from level,” I said.

Which brings us to the ride that started off this missive. I questioned her closely about the saddle and its feel.

“Lowering the nose made all the difference,” she said. “This feels just fine. You don’t have to change a thing.”

Once again, the big difference made by a small adjustment hit home. But I had my own version of the story. Just before that morning ride, I had once again tweaked my saddle position — edging it back ever so slightly. I’d been doing that over the last two weeks, a little bit at a time. Each time, it felt better, but each time, I thought things could improve even more. This time, it felt pretty good.

I’ve had a chance to confirm that in subsequent days. My rides on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were all good ones, with no discomfort on the seat. This morning, I led a B ride out into the country for a 36-mile round trip. I think I’ve finally found the magic spot. The saddle stays right where it is.

It’s a game of millimeters, but if you have the patience to keep at it, eventually you’ll get it right.

Noseless Saddles – My Two Cents Worth

Caveat:  I do not own a noseless saddle, and I don’t know anyone who does. I did do some research to determine whether they’re the kind of thing road bikers would like. These are my conclusions based on that research. Take what I say here with a grain of salt.

A recent New York Times article extolls the virtues of noseless saddles. They mostly eliminate pressure on the perineum (the soft tissues down below) and make for a more comfortable ride. They also prevent erectile dysfunction in men that can result from repeatedly squishing your naughty bits against a saddle’s nose.

Nexride - it pivots.

I was intrigued by the article, and followed its links to different saddle makers to learn more about what’s out there. There are a lot more of them — by more different makers — than I thought.

Some offer what amounts to a bench. The Nexride is one of these, but pivots 15 degrees left to right as your butt flexes with each pedal stroke.

Others make a special effort to cushion the sit bones. The Hobson Easy Seat is one such example. Two padded cushions cradle the sit bones, and there is no saddle nose to squish the perineum.

Easyseat

Or, the seat could be shaped like a crescent, to cushion the sit bones in a slightly different way. The ISM Sport model exemplifies these types.

One recurring theme soon became apparent:

Noseless saddles are mostly for upright riding.

The saddle websites say so. Here’s just a sample of what you can find:

The ISM Sport.

The Hobson Easy Seat: “NOTE: The best position for the seat is sitting upright with handle bars positioned upward.”

Comfort Saddle: “The Comfort Saddle is best suited for cyclists who prefer to sit upright.”

ISM Sport: “Designed for more upright types of riding such as hybrids or light trail riding.”

But most readers of this blog are roadies. We don’t sit upright on our bikes, except to take a few minutes rest during a long ride. So as good as these saddles sound, they might not be the solution for us.

However, one of the companies in the noseless saddle business — ISM — might have the answer. They make the upright kinds of saddles just as their competitors do, but they also make oddly-shaped saddles with a split nose that is supposed to accomplish the same thing — take pressure off the perineum.

ISM Adamo Road.

ISM produces a range of different saddles, geared for riders from time trialists to recreational road riders. The saddle pictured here is the ISM Adamo Road. It has two “arms” in front with a relatively wide gap between them — and the arms do not meet at the front. The design is supposed to prevent blood loss from compression of the soft tissue, as well as keep weight off the perineum and on the sit bones.

A check of various equipment review sites finds anecdotal support for the benefits of the ISM saddle. It boils down to this: The wide cutout between the two nose parts eases pressure on the soft tissues. The fact that there is still a “nose” of sorts to the saddle allows riders to have a similar sensation as a nosed saddle.

ISM saddles retail for a low of $119 to a high of $224, depending on the model. I’ve said before that I’m happy with my $25 WTB saddle. But when it’s time to replace it, I’ll be looking closely at an ISM.

WTB Speed V Saddle (Review)

It’s been a familiar pattern: Ride, get sore bottom. Ride, get sore bottom. What to do about it?

I’ve fiddled with different saddles.

Three years ago, there was a Trek gel saddle of some kind, that I appropriated from my wife’s bike when she got a new saddle for herself (an Avocet gel — too bad Avocet is no more). I knew the Forte Classic from Performance would be a big improvement. Nope. Then, the Specialized Alias that came with my new bike seemed to hold some promise. Until I did some really long rides on it, and started looking for an alternative. The Selle San Marco Ponza was the answer to my prayers — for about an hour.

Most of these saddles had one thing in common: Little padding. So when I decided to spring for a new saddle, I looked for something with a little more cush. A couple of lines in particular offer saddles with more padding than I’ve been used to: Serfas and WTB. I liked the looks of the WTB Speed V, so a couple of weeks ago, I paid a visit to the local Performance store, and bought one. The fact that it was on sale for $25 helped in the decision-making process, too.

The Speed V is wider across the back than the Ponza, which I figured I must need. I liked the feel of the Ponza’s narrow seat, but maybe a slightly wider platform would offer better support. The Speed V also has the distinctive WTB “Love Channel” (how could you not like that name?) — not a complete cutout, but not flat, like the Ponza.

It’s a comfy saddle, no doubt about it. I immediately liked the feel of the seat on my butt. The wide part of the seat has padding that gives, without being overly soft. The nose of the saddle is also padded more than I’ve been used to, which was welcome when climbing.

The first couple of rides were great. I actually went 16 and 18 miles without thinking about the saddle. But I knew the acid test would come on a long ride — something well over one hour.

That came last weekend at the Armadillo Hill Country Classic. I rode the 50-mile route, and was on the bike for over three hours, with only two short breaks. And I’ll admit it — there was some discomfort. However, I’m coming to the conclusion that the problem is not so much with the saddle as it is with my riding position.

The part that gets sore is my taint — that area between the boys and the uh, exit. On the Armadillo, I found myself standing on the pedals while coasting, just to take some weight off the taint. And it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be putting weight there anyway. After all, when getting fitted for a saddle by companies that use an ass-o-meter, or whatever it’s called, the key measurement is the distance between the sit bones — not where your taint hits the saddle.

I started deliberately putting more pressure on my sit bones, and sinking them into the Speed V’s padding. It helped. Ah ha! so this is the pelvic tilt I’ve heard about from time to time. Pressing down on the sit bones causes the pelvis to tilt forward, and relieve pressure on the taint.

Problem is, I’ve been riding the other way so long, it’s going to take some effort on my part to get the tilt down to where it’s second nature.

I figured I’d help it by adjusting the tilt of the saddle. I’ve always been meticulous about keeping the saddle level. After the Armadillo, I dropped the nose about half a bubble on the carpenter’s level. No definite conclusions yet.

For the time being, I’ll keep the Speed V. One of the reasons I bought it at Performance was their no questions asked return policy, so I do have other saddle options if the Speed V isn’t the answer to my saddle woes.

Ponza — My One-Hour Saddle

Over the last year, I’ve blogged more than once about my Selle San Marco Ponza. It’s the saddle I mounted on my bike last May, after complaining about the hard ride on my previous saddle.

I liked the Ponza for its narrow race-inspired shape. It has a slight upsweep at the back, which cradles the butt. I wasn’t getting the soreness on my bottom that the previous saddle was giving me.

That was before I started riding longer on it.

It’s been evident for some time now that the Ponza is okay for anything up to an hour. At about that time — maybe 55 minutes, maybe 65 — my butt hurts. Specifically, the soft tissue area right at the bottom of my bottom hurts. And the soreness will be there well into the next day.

In addition, I’ve been developing saddle sores. Bag Balm seems to do a good job of dealing with them, but still — on a ride of several hours’ duration, you don’t want to have to deal with an irritated pimple on your butt being rubbed uncomfortably by a saddle that has turned against you.

Much of the time, a one-hour saddle is fine for me. I can ride from my home to the Veloway, do three or four laps, and ride back home in roughly that 55-65 minute window I mentioned above. That’s about 15-18 miles.

But on weekends, I like to go longer. Two hours would be the minimum for me there. And to do that would require another saddle.

Recently, I did a Sunday ride with a group of folks I’d never ridden with before. Looking over their equipment, I saw many more generously padded saddles than I do on my club rides. When I asked people if the padded saddles don’t cause them problems on long rides, I got a unanimous no. Everyone said they feel as good after three hours on the bike as after an hour.

So, despite everything I’ve read or heard about how padded saddles can compress your sensitive parts, and cause just as much discomfort as the hard ones, I decided I would go for something cushier this time.

The new saddle is on the bike, and I had a good first ride. But I’m going to wait a bit before I review it. I need to get more miles on it — and rides of longer than an hour.

The Bontrager Inform Saddle — Revisited

Guest poster Jeff Hemmel updates his review of the Bontrager Inform saddle — and likes it.

Regular readers may recall that last year I posted a review of the Bontrager InForm RL saddle, a relatively new design that had been getting a lot of attention due not only to Bontrager’s “size-to-fit” concept, but also designer’s choice to forego a cutout in favor of what they considered proper weight distribution to combat numbness.

Though I was never a gushing fan of the saddle, I was pretty happy with it overall…at least for several months. Then, for reasons that eluded me, I started to get that dreaded numbness. No, it never lasted after I got off the bike thankfully, but it got to be a real pain — literally and figuratively — during nearly every ride. By summer, I was finding it really annoying, and wondering if the seat’s foam had somehow broken down.

I asked Trek about it and they asked the obvious questions: had I changed my position, etc. Each time I analyzed the situation I couldn’t think of a single thing I had changed. Not my position, not my brand of shorts, nothing. I started to just think the saddle wasn’t that hot after all, and began researching alternatives.

A funny thing, however, happened over the winter. Here in Florida, it was one of the coldest in history, and as a result I did a lot of riding bundled up in far more clothing than I normally would. And somewhere in the midst of those cold, windy rides, I began to notice something. The numbness was subsiding. Ultimately, it went away for the most part. And that relative comfort has continued into the spring.

Like an on-again, off-again relationship, my saddle and I are once again an item.

Why the change of heart? At first I had no idea. But after analyzing things for a while, I think I found the answer. And I think part of it is the result of all that cold-weather riding in tights.

No, it wasn’t more padding, or a different chamois placement, or anything like that. I continue to wear my regular shorts, pulling on chamois-less Pearl Izumi tights over them. Those tights, however, are made of a more slippery material than my shorts. As a result, I found myself sliding around a little more in my seat. And what I discovered was that I was ultimately settling into a position a little further back of where I had been riding as of late — a position that spread more of my weight on my sit bones at a wider portion of the seat.

Why, or how, had I moved forward? I have no idea. But without any big conscious effort, I was now moving back a fraction more…and finding that riding could once again be a pleasurable experience.

Yes, I occasionally force myself to scoot my butt back just a little on the seat, but for the most part my body has now just adapted to this new position.

Long story short? I once again think the InForm saddle is worth my money, and I’m in no rush to replace it. I also have a fresh appreciation for that advice you so often hear about saddles — they need to support your weight on your sit bones, those two bony parts you feel when you sit on a flat, hard surface, and not on the perineum, that area of soft tissues between your legs that house all those nerves and arteries that you need for other, more important things.

I still think people should try different saddles to see which fit them best, and yes, I think a professional bike fitting is a great idea for any serious cyclist. But if you’re just not happy with your saddle, you might want to move around on it a little bit before you go shopping for a new one.

In other words, you might want to put a little work into your current relationship…before it leads to a pricey divorce.

What saddle do you ride?

Saddles

Here’s a post on a subjective topic: saddles. We’ve discussed them in the past, and it always seems to be a topic of interest. This time around, I want to know what kind of saddle you’re riding, and what you think of it.

This idea was suggested by our regular guest poster, Jeff Hemmel, who reviewed the Bontrager Inform a couple of months ago — and has now fallen out of love with it. Likewise, a saddle I once liked, the Specialized Alias, now sits on a shelf in my garage, and the one that replaced it — the San Marco Selle Ponza — is okay, but not super.

So we’re curious. Have you found a dandy saddle that you can ride comfortably for long distances? Would you recommend other riders try out a saddle like the one you have?

Here’s my request: Send me an email with the make and model of saddle you ride. Tell me a little about its strong points, and/or its weak points. In other words, provide a mini-review of your saddle. If you want to send along a picture, that would be wonderful. I’ll compile the submissions, and feature the results in a future post.

Post-century soreness in unmentionable places

I got home from work and decided not to ride this evening. Tuesdays are the only day of the week I get home at a reasonable time, and can fit in a ride of an hour or so. My usual Tuesday routine is to head for the Veloway, and do several laps around the track. Five laps will give me a nice 21-mile round trip from the house and back.

But today when I got home (after stopping to cast my ballot in early voting) I thought twice about it, and decided not to go. The reason is simple. My taint hurts like someone kicked me there! On Sunday, I did an easy nine-mile recovery ride, and was very uncomfortable the entire way. Today, when I assessed the tender spot, it felt as though there was some bruising there. Can’t see anything, but I sure can feel it.

So — no biking for a few days. I’ll be out of town Friday and Saturday, and wouldn’t be able to bike in any case, but I’ll see how I feel on Sunday, and with any luck, I’ll be back in the saddle then.

Looking back, I’m kicking myself for not taking advantage of an item in the century ride’s goody bag — a one-use packet of Chamois Butt’r. I had made liberal use of my new favorite – Body Glide — before heading out to the century. But of course that stuff will wear off. If I had half a brain, I would have put the Chamois Butt’r in one of my jersey pockets, and used it at about the halfway point in the ride.

I know that some veteran riders will tell me to HTFU — but I’ve ridden 2,300 miles this year, and I think I’ve done enough saddle time that I ought to be hardened. Wonder if I need a new saddle? I’ve always liked the one that came with the bike, but lately, I get uncomfortable on it after an hour or so. Maybe I need a thorough professional bike fitting? I got the free (and rather cursory, in my opinion) fitting when I bought the bike. I’ve made some adjustments since then that seem to have improved things, but obviously, it’s not enough.

Well, time heals all wounds. I’ll take a few more days off, then hit the roads again.