um, having kids doesn't make your hip bones spread. Being a woman endows you with hips wide enough and a pelvic opening large enough to bear children.
I ride a men's saddle, a Brooks B67
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I never had kids, so I don't have spread out bones & women's saddles are like wearing one of those old fashioned sanitary napkins. My Serfas is so old that it is splitting.
Does anybody ride on a men's saddle that they can recommend? I tried my LBS but no luck.
Thanks!
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um, having kids doesn't make your hip bones spread. Being a woman endows you with hips wide enough and a pelvic opening large enough to bear children.
I ride a men's saddle, a Brooks B67
Start experimenting.
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they do make skinny mini little women's saddles-- I've seen them. Never tried a men's.
Speaking of saddles, if my front-area lady bits feel squashed on my seat, does that mean I should rotate the saddle with the front down a bit more? I have one of those standard bontrager seats that comes with a lot of WSD models. I'm considering one with a cutaway in the middle.
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Thanks - I'll look at the Brooks.
I've been riding for 20 years - and when I started riding there were no women's saddles - at least not in my city's LBS's. So, I might just be used to men's saddles. (We also had to use men's shoes - that was a trick!)
I'll let my gyn know that she's wrong about the pelvic girdle spreading during childbirth.
To train a dog, you must be more interesting than dirt.
Trek Project One
Trek FX 7.4 Hybrid
I like Bikes - Mimi
Watercolor Blog
Davidson Custom Bike - Cavaletta
Dahon 2009 Sport - Luna
Old Raleigh Mixte - Mitzi
I have Fizik Ariones on both of my bikes. I find them very comfortable.
If I were to look for a different saddle, I would be looking at men's saddles again. Even though I am very pear-shaped and have wide hips, I have narrowish sit bones (around 125 center to center), and I tend to ride with my hips rolled forward a bit. When I try wider saddles, I always feel like I am running into the wide part, if that makes any sense.
I also do not do well with cutouts.
If you are more comfortable on a narrower saddle, you're in luck -- there's a huge selection to choose from.
With the sanitary napkin analogy, I'm wondering if she's talking about them being too wide in the nose, not in the rear at all? I need a narrow nose and a wide rear. (And no, I don't have children, I come by my wide sitbones naturally.)
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Another Brooks mens' saddle rider here.
I tried a Brooks woman's saddle (I think it was a B17S) but I couldn't stand it.
I've been riding standard B17 saddles for a few years now, but just recently I switched to the Brooks Team Pro, which is slightly narrower in the nose area, but as far as I can tell about the same width in the rear.
2009 Lynskey R230 Houseblend - Brooks Team Pro
2007 Rivendell Bleriot - Rivet Pearl
Brooks makes their 'women's' saddles shorter, which sure doesn't work for me either.
I ride their widest saddle- the B68, but in the 'men's' versions, which is 'normal' length. It's wide whether it's the men's or women's version.
Thus, I think it's more accurate to just refer to the width and shape of saddles, because saddles are not neatly split into Men's and Women's.
Some women have WIDE sitbones and have never had children, and some friends of mine have had several children yet they have very narrow pelvises and need narrow saddles.
It's mostly about your genetics and bone structure. When pregnant, our bodies do produce more Relaxin- a natural hormone which makes connective tissue and ligaments in the pelvis more flexible, so the pelvis can actually spread a bit during childbirth. That doesn't mean you have wider sitbones after having children, but it means the joints in the pelvis can move more during pregnancy to accommodate a baby's head passing through. After pregnancy we supposedly go back to normal Relaxin levels and the effect fades.
Lisa
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