century today revealed er, flaw in riding position/setup

[ultraviolet]

If you remove the pain from squished bits from the equation, does the new position feel otherwise feel better or worse? If the new position feels better, then you should probably start by looking at other saddles. If there are other problems with the position, then you need to re-visit the person who made the changes, list out the issues and get things tweaked.

[OakLeaf]

+1 to ultraviolet ... although even before changing saddles, you might consider tilting your saddle down just a skooch.

[trbl_mkr]

minus the squished lady bits, I love the new position. They tilted the handlebars down by loosening the screws at the top of the stem (Giant OCR2 has a funny 2-piece stem) and tilting them down, then re-tightened. will try moving the saddle back a bit, thanks for the suggestion! Incidentally, the pain is a lot less this morning, and I'm willing to bet my seatbones would have hurt just as much after the long ride in the old position

[OakLeaf]

If you do try moving your saddle back, make sure you make a note of where it was. Moving it back will change the relationship between your legs and your pedals, as well as your reach to the bars. I'd try changing the tilt before the fore/aft positioning, truly.

[Biciclista]

the important point is that your girly bits are not supposed to bear weight, your sit bones are. If you continue to use your girly bits as your main point of contact with your saddle, you face more pain, and possible permanent nerve damage*. If you are sitting on your sit bones, that will not happen. I can ride 100 miles without any of my butt being sore. You should be able to work up to that, and you're never going to be able to do it if you are riding in the "more aggressive" position.

(***nerve damage includes aches, numbness, pains maybe even during sex, come on!!***)

[roguedog]

Ok.. is it just me and my ignorance but .. isn't tilting the handlebars down the initial wrong solution anyhow?

to indy's point, if you wanted to get into a more aggro position, wouldn't it usually involve either _dropping_ the height of the steam or by changing the stem angle?

if all they did was tilt your hb,, that would make me put my hoods/brakes/shifters farther away thus, changing my reach... the only reason i can see them tilting your hb is if your bars were already more tilted toward you than "normal." take a look at the hb in this article, is this how your hb now looks, after the lbs tilted your bars down or are the hoods even ? (Sorry, I'm a visual person.)

oh, and yes, when i get onto my bike with the more drop, i need a different saddle because my pelvis is now angled differently. and i'm hoping nscrbug's saddle might help out with that

[bluebug32]

I flipped my stem and suddenly my saddle was painful. I tried several saddles, but didn't find one that worked, so I ended up just flipping my stem back over. Of course, that solved the problem.