Bicycle saddles
Mar. 29th, 2012 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
untonuggan posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
bicycles"It has always been an idea of mine that the right saddle is to be found. I said, 'You give up that idea. This is an imperfect world, a world of joy and sorrow mingled. There may be a Better Land where bicycle saddles are made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud. In this world, the simplest thing is to get used to something hard.'"
- Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on Wheels, 1900
quoted in The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling by Edmund R. Burke and Ed. Pavelka, 2000
I've been having some pain in my, um, lady bits...the really important ones with all the nerve endings. My sit bones are fine with the saddle I have so far, but I think I either need to angle it down or get something different if I want to go on longer rides. (It's a stock Trek/Bontrager WSD saddle.)
FYI, I know for sure I don't want to get a wide, heavy saddle, for a variety of reasons.
So, this may be a fruitless question, but does anyone have any experience with Terry women's saddles? Thoughts?
- Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on Wheels, 1900
quoted in The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling by Edmund R. Burke and Ed. Pavelka, 2000
I've been having some pain in my, um, lady bits...the really important ones with all the nerve endings. My sit bones are fine with the saddle I have so far, but I think I either need to angle it down or get something different if I want to go on longer rides. (It's a stock Trek/Bontrager WSD saddle.)
FYI, I know for sure I don't want to get a wide, heavy saddle, for a variety of reasons.
So, this may be a fruitless question, but does anyone have any experience with Terry women's saddles? Thoughts?
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Date: 2012-03-29 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 02:34 pm (UTC)I don't have drops or aero bars on my bike, just the flat handlebars, but I've been considering investing in aero bars at some point if it looks like I'm going to be doing a lot of long rides.
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 03:47 pm (UTC)Le sigh.
Thanks for the input though. What is the German brand, by the way? The internet is a wonderful thing...
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Date: 2012-03-30 05:37 am (UTC)However, if you're keeping your rides under, say, four hours (YMMV, obvs), then the Liberator may be fine.
I'm currently riding a Damselfly, on my touring/commuting/everything bike, and loving it. I should note that I'm 5 foot 3 inches and weigh in at about 130 lbs, a lot of that below the waist, and I ride a touring bike with drop handlebars (so I'm not sitting upright on my saddle).
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Date: 2012-03-30 03:58 pm (UTC)Currently considering either the Butterfly or the FLX Gel.
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Date: 2012-03-30 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 12:33 pm (UTC)edit: Here's their website. http://www.brooksengland.com/
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 08:30 pm (UTC)It is, however, not cheap. For me it was worth it because I'd already blown over half as much trying out various other cheaper saddles without finding one that really worked, and it was entirely plausible that I'd go through as much again. So it was worth a punt the first time around, and a no-brainer once I knew I got on with it.
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Date: 2012-03-29 08:46 pm (UTC)Brooks has got one with a cut-out, but I haven't tried it because I hear they sag a bit in the middle, and what I found was that after riding on the solid leather version for a bit of a while it sagged enough in the middle that I didn't feel a cut-out was necessary. And I was a bit afraid it would pinch when I went around corners.
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Date: 2012-03-30 03:49 am (UTC)ETA: The brown leather is on sale for almost half off; $99.98 is not nearly as pricey as the regular colors.
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Date: 2012-03-29 06:45 am (UTC)-J
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 12:58 pm (UTC)Beyond that, I have a women's mtb saddle on my road bike. It's moderately wide, with gel bits, and pretty comfy. I think it cost about $50. Alas, I don't recall the brand.
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 03:38 pm (UTC)Last I checked, Terry had a really good return policy, as do many stores that carry them. I do think they're worth trying. Since the Rosie's discontinued, I'd suggest the Butterfly. (Rosie seems to be somewhere between the Butterfly and the Cite, which just looks too puffy to me. Also, mine has "ride like a girl" printed all over it, which I found annoying at first but realized it would make it less likely to be stolen.)
While I seem to do very well with Terry, the next thing I'd try for the MTB would be the Brooks women's saddles. I briefly road a friend's Trek WSD road bike and didn't find the saddle so great for me.
Some stores apparently have things you can sit on to check the width of your sitz bones and find a saddle that matches. They might also have quick-change seat posts so you can try saddles out; however, I'm dubious of those, because what's comfortable for five minutes may not be comfortable for 50 miles.
Be careful about lowering the nose of the saddle -- if it's right, that's fine! But it can also mean you slide down and use your hands to hold yourself in place, and that will be a problem long-term.
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Date: 2012-03-29 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 08:48 pm (UTC)Though the tires have held up really well, of all things.
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Date: 2012-03-30 04:02 pm (UTC)I just swapped them out for Panaracer Pasela's and it's AMAZING. I rode over gravel and tree roots and hardly felt it (in my hands or in my butt). Plus, when I used my Bontrager tires on the bike trainer they kept squeaking. So I have much dislike for the tires. I think they're just too stiff, which does mean they hold up well, but they are tres uncomfortable.
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Date: 2012-03-30 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 04:08 pm (UTC)"Terry TRX Gel (Women's)
Watch the miles fly by and the records fall aboard Terry's TRX Gel. This sweet saddle boasts a wide, gel-padded nose that allows you to drop into the aero bars in total comfort. And the long and narrow profile is perfect for high-cadence pedaling. Plus, the perforated leather top breathes while the rear cut away eliminates unwanted pressure for top comfort."
Not that I have aero bars at the moment, but it does sound a LOT more comfortable than what I've got.
I'm a bit concerned about the Butterfly being wider than the average racing saddle, and in my experience wider is not necessarily better. What do you think about this one? http://www.rei.com/product/814014/terry-flx-gel-saddle-womens
Will definitely check out all the lovely links you've supplied!
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Date: 2012-03-30 05:31 pm (UTC)That seat is made for people whose backs are nearly parallel to the ground. That's what's meant by "Performance" and "drop into the aero bars." If you're not riding in that position, it will likely be an instrument of torture. (It might work -- anything might work -- but I wouldn't bet on it.)
Herein I will babble about anatomy. I am not an expert and I may be wrong, but here goes:
Your ischial tuberosities, aka sitz bones or sit bones, are rounded bony protrusions at the bottom of your pelvis. When you sit up straight, you're sitting on one part of your sitz bones. When you lean forward, your pelvis tilts and you kind of roll to a new part of your sitz bones, and that changes the angle and the distance between the points that hit the saddle. Basically, that distance gets narrower. Some people lean forward so much that the point of contact is the pubic ramis, which is the sweep of bone from the ischial tuberosity to the front of the pelvis. (Yes I looked that up.) The way the bones are shaped, the distance between the part of the bone that hits the saddle gets narrower as you roll forward.
This is bone structure and independent of padding. Heavy women can have narrow sitz bones. Thin women can have wide sitz bones. If your experience is that wider saddles don't work for you, then you may well be narrow; but that may also be because a lot of the wider saddles have a lot of padding (especially the cheaper ones). Padding means that your sitz bones dig into the padding and then it presses up against the soft tissue, which sucks a lot. I like my saddle because it is hella wide (I'm built like a short Jessica Rabbit...) but not very padded and has a cutout, and it's on a mountain bike where I have a pretty upright riding position.
There are a lot of instructions on how to measure sitz bones yourself (sit in undies on printer paper on a yoga mat or carpeted stair, etc.) and most good bike stores should have something.
The cutout test is something like this: sit on a hard chair and lean forward into a biking position. Does your soft tissue feel smushed against the chair? Magic 8 ball says get a cutout.
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Date: 2012-03-30 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-31 02:28 am (UTC)On the TRX - I feel that I should caution that my dad is a randonneur so I get all kinds of riding advice from him ALL THE TIMEZ much of it wise and much of it unsolicited. Unfortunately it is of a male-oriented and touring ALL THE MILEZ bent.
Thus I have WIDE SADDLES ARE BAD drilled into my head, so I have a really hard time looking at things such as the Terry Liberator without thinking that they will be too wide for me. I know I can do the whole sit bones width measuring thing, but I wish that Terry would offer measurements like Specialized does. Because once I measure my sit bones, how do I tell how that measurement compares to the saddles Terry sells? And I kind of don't want to get a Specialized saddle just because that's what my dad uses and I'm feeling contrarian.
Similarly, I mentioned the Brooks thing in passing to him today and I immediately got Opinions about how (1) many randonneurs really like them; (2) he tried someone else's and didn't (which imho seems like a silly test because it's melded to the other person's butt, and btw that person was a woman); (3) you can't move backward and forward on a Brooks the same way you can on a synthetic saddle; (4) it takes awhile to break them in. Since my lady bits are sore now and I would like to have a period of not sore lady bits when I am actively riding, I'm feeling kind of scared away from the Brooks.
OTOH, I could get the Brooks B-17 in Men's from REI for about $76 with my member coupon and yearly dividend. Since it's REI, if I don't like it for any reason ever even if it's years from now, I can return it for what I paid for it. (Seriously, I can, and they won't hassle me about it. I've done it with a bicycle that I've ridden and they just took it away and gave me my money back. They sell the used stuff in their attic sale.) Someone above mentioned riding a men's saddle because they liked the control of the longer nose, which makes sense to me. Also, if I like the saddle but feel the nose is too long, I can return it and get a women's one somewhere else.
So - I'm torn between [something Terry that I haven't decided yet, maybe a Butterfly?] and the Brooks I mentioned above. I am giving myself a few days to think about it, and also a few days for the lady bits to stop aching so I could maybe sit on the saddle and such-like.
ETA: Although I know sitting on a saddle in the store is very different from riding it for milez.
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Date: 2012-03-31 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 04:11 pm (UTC)Whatever you choose will likely be better than the stock saddle.
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Date: 2012-03-30 04:15 pm (UTC)Word.
And thanks for the input on the Butterfly.
Not about Terry, but still about women's saddles
Date: 2012-03-29 10:48 pm (UTC)I spent a couple years biking everywhere I went, using a men's stock seat. Then I spent a couple years being unable or nearly unable to reach orgasm. (It took me a while to figure out the connection. Then I stopped biking for a few years and I gradually got my response back.) So I have Definite Opinions on the matter, which mostly boil down to: make sure you have a good saddle for your body!
These days I bike nearly everywhere I go, again, without that being a problem. Selle's Respiro seats work very well for my own personal body; your body may vary. I have one in the Women's Athletic model on my road bike, the Women's Moderate on my hybrid, and the Women's Relaxed on my older sit-up-straight bicycle. I tried Selle's Lookin saddle for a little while, too, but I liked the Respiro better so I switched back. OTOH, one of these is the very same saddle that
(Selle's website still sucks, but what I did learn from looking at it today is that the saddles I have look like they're now called "Respiro Soft," rather than "Respiro." At least, if the picture is anything to go by.)
Re: Not about Terry, but still about women's saddles
Date: 2012-03-30 04:17 pm (UTC)Eek!
Thanks for the input, will definitely keep it in mind. Makes buying a new saddle a higher priority for sure.
Re: Not about Terry, but still about women's saddles
Date: 2012-03-30 05:06 pm (UTC)