Need help from Brooks owners, please.

[SLash]

Just got back from riding around the neighborhood with regular shorts, no bike shorts/no padding.

I decided to ride once more before making any changes to my fit so I could mentally take note of exactly what was happening regarding pain, etc. I have found over the years that I am better off making changes to my fit very slowly and very conservatively.

First off, I was much more comfortable on my Brooks without my padded bike shorts. Confusing to me, I would have expected the opposite.

I'm wondering if the reason is when I wear padded shorts, the padding gets squished against the saddle, which further squishes my bits. My other saddles have cut outs so this wouldn't be an issue, or at least not as much of one. What do you think?

I did Knotted's cut-out test and passed, nothing was squished.

Another thing I noticed, when I am riding on my saddle with hands placed just on the flat part of the bar (either side of the stem) my saddle feels fine. No pain anywhere.

It is when I rotate my pelvis down/forward and get on hoods or drops (which is how I ride the majority of the time) that the pain occurs. The pain occurs not on the sit bones but rather the pubic bone.

Thoughts??

Much Thanks!

Susan