On a hillside desolate

[venta]

Advice wanted from the bicycle-aware, please...

Firstly, let's get one thing clear. I am not a cyclist. I do not cycle. I am a person who owns a bike who and sometimes uses it to get from A to B. Typically A and B are both within Oxford, and not terribly far away from each other.

My bike is a nice, sensible affair with six gears and straight handlebars. I mostly like it. However, I do have one serious issue with it.

The saddle. When I hop on my bike, it all seems fine. But after more than about ten minutes of riding the saddle has become quite uncomfortable. A few months ago, I cycled out to Nuneham Courtney[*] (about 5 miles) and back, and the net result was bruises in unmentionable places.

My saddle doesn't appear to be the sort that would have this effect - it's quite broad, and quite padded. I have no idea whether the problem is the saddle itself, or something more subtle like the angle at which I have it fixed.

I have no idea how to fix this probem. Adjust saddle, ride for 15 minutes, check for bruises, wait two days, repeat - it's not an appealing process. Similarly with buying a new saddle. How will I tell whether a saddle which a shop offers me will be comfortable not only in the shop, but several miles down the road ?

Presumably finding a comfortable saddle is a well-known problem, so hopefully there is a well-known solution.

[*] Which, I might add, is pretty much entirely uphill from my house. Which surprised me in the woefully flat county of Oxfordshire. My journey back was an order of magnitude quicker than my journey there.

Comments

Brookes

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

I never got on very well with a Brookes saddle, but experiences differ. I use a Planet X superlight team saddle on both bikes and it's comfortable from the start. They do (or used to do) a shorter nose one which would probably fit the female anatomy better, but both models are narrow race-type ones.

Often the problem with chafing saddles is too much padding rather than not enough.

You're welcome to have a go with my old Brookes saddle to see if it works for you. It's a narrow style, which may be a problem... but worth a try.

Re: Brookes

[venta.livejournal.com]

This isn't a chafing problem - it's what the lovely Mr Sheldon Brown describes as "soft tissue" getting squodged between the saddle and some bones. He talks a lot about "sit bones", but if I've understood correctly where such things are, they're not the bones that are giving me trouble.

From reading his other comments, maybe I just need to get more used to mine (again) and adjust the height. If that doesn't solve the problem, I might take you up on the offer of a borrow, thanks.