“Cycling down under” “Cycling can induce a plethora of nether-region injuries that range from annoying to devastating. The crotch itself doesn’t normally bear weight; it’s the job of the ischial tuberosities or sit bones. Ideally it’s this part of your anatomy that should contact the saddle. However, with poor bike fit or in an effort to achieve an aerodynamic position, part of your body weight can rest on soft tissues with some painful consequences.” Potomac Pedallers Cycling Club |
“No one has to be told how uncomfortable cycling can be, particularly after a lengthy absence and a few more pounds of body weight.”
Imagine how much further you could go if you weren’t constantly having to grin and bear the varying degrees of discomfort associated with sitting on a saddle. Surely cycling endurance should be a matter of personal fitness, not of one’s pain threshold. Lifelong cycling enthusiasts who say they’ve got used to eating up all those miles on their trusted ‘conventional’ saddles, beware the physical damage you could be doing to yourselves. Chances are you haven’t actually ‘broken in’ your saddle as you might think………. the saddle has broken you in, although you might not want to admit to it. Leisure cyclists: that numbness feeling you’re getting during and after your ride is very real. Your body is trying to tell you something and you should start to heed its warnings. And for those of you whose bicycles are doing nothing more than collect dust in the garage because you find using them too uncomfortable: if there was an affordable solution to this discomfort wouldn’t you prefer to ditch the car once in a while in favour of one of the best forms of exercise there is? Amazing isn’t it. With all the engineering sophistication that goes into today’s bicycles, whether they be road going racers or off-road mountain bikes, perineal (that’s the ‘crotch’) discomfort had yet to be properly remedied.
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“Current sports saddle design, without exception, results in the downward pressure of the rider’s weight being almost entirely concentrated on the delicate perineal area (or crotch as it’s more widely known)…. it’s no wonder that cycling is such a pain!”
There are nose-less ‘medical saddles’, of course, but have you ever tried steering a bike at speed on one of those, let alone just stay on it – (some say it feels like pedalling a bike while sitting on a soccer ball, making a bike feel tipsy, particularly when you’re reaching down for any reason, like to grab a water bottle or adjust a shoe strap. There’s nothing between your thighs and nothing to slide forward onto. When you turn your hips, the bike doesn’t turn with you. You feel like you’re on a perch, separate from the bike instead of at one with it). Fact is, the crotch isn’t designed for taking the strain when sitting or riding: that’s the job of your inner sit bones (ischial tuberosities) and even then the pressure points need to be varied. Ever tried sitting in one position on a sofa or in bed for prolonged periods? You have to change position slightly every so often. So with the comparatively tiny surface area of a cycle saddle the ability to find slightly altered sitting positions is significantly more important. This situation has been going on too long. Men and women have had no choice other than to simply put up with the fact that sitting on a bicycle just isn’t comfortable…… but now our saddles are putting this right!
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