Front Saddle Problems

[jcl531]

Never realized how tiny little adjustments can make all the difference. Let's see what happens with all the tweaking going on. To be continued……….

[Owlie]

The footprint of the saddle may also be the wrong shape, and that, combined with bike fit and an asymmetry in your pedal stroke may cause that pattern of pain.

(Yes, I had the same saddle. It was too pear-shaped (too gradual a transition between the nose and the back of the saddle), which meant I kept sliding forward onto the girly parts, and then because I relied on my right leg for power more than my left, I'd sit weird to spare my inner right thigh the chafing, which lead to squished girly parts, but on the left.)

[Owlie]

I did use this saddle for awhile, and my experience was similar to your's. Initially good, but then got beat-up in the front region. I believe in my case it wasn't due to an overly pear-shaped saddle where the transition area between the nose and sitting area was too wide, but because the padding around the cutout was too agressive. The nose has a lof of 'loft' in the padding, and it just pressed into me.

I've found relieve on a saddle with minimal padding, and a nice cutout.

The padding in the nose did not help, that's for sure! The shape was the reason that the padding was the problem in the first place, though. :|

[HillSlugger]

See if you can find a Cobb V-Flow Max to demo. It's an "almost noseless" saddle. It fixed all of my issues up front. It was like a miracle.

There are also the Adamo noseless saddles. I tried one of these, but wasn't comfortable with its wide, very short "nose".

The Cobb is a little narrower and a little longer in the nose, but the drop front shape means that there's nothing there to rub you.

[jcl531]

Ok, so after moving the saddle a tiny bit from the right and centering it, I took a 36 miler and that problem on the right side was gone! Still had the numbness in the middle, but that awful chafing was gone and I was able to pretty much enjoy the ride. I think I'm going to demo the Cobb V flow Max and see how that goes. Thanks again!

[jcl531]

Ok, decided to update my trial and error results. I originally was on the Lady Selle Italia Gel, did some good miles on it, but after a while, it became so uncomfortable. Got a lot of suggestions on this thread, which were so helpful and appreciated!! Since I last wrote in, I tried moving my Selle Italia nose up a bit and then down a bit, but it wasn't really great. Then tried a Specialized Jett, felt good initially then uh oh. Next tried a saddle without a cutout, a Selle Royal Lookin, but couldn't even make two miles on it. Lastly, I got a Cobb V Flow Plus to try. Went onto their website and followed the setup directions. Found that according to them, my saddle was actually too far back, and I moved it forward about two inches, maybe more. Went out today and had such an amazing, comfortable ride for the first 13 or so miles….then it hit. Ouch!! That is such a hard saddle, but much better on the girly bits which is where I was having the initial trouble. With the Cobb, everything around them got sore this time!! I can't seem to get it right. What I will try now is to put the Selle Italia back on and move it forward two or so inches and see what happens. What the Cobb website said is if you measure from tip of your index finger to back of your elbow, that's the distance the tip of the nose of your saddle should be from the middle of the handlebars, just for those newbies like myself. Mine was much farther back. Anyway, sorry for the long post!!

[Sky King]

Don't want to hijack, has anyone ever tried a "Ride Out Technologies" saddle, the woman who designed them lives in Boise. I have met her and I sat on one at Interbike a few years ago, didn't work for me but may for others. Her website is www.rideouttech.com