Hi,

Brand new to the forum. I am in my first year of cycling and am trying to get everything as-good-as-it-is-gonna-get for my first century ride (with 7,000 ft of climbing!) at the end of this month. I hadn't ridden more than 20 miles at a time before this year, so it has been a quick learning curve.

I am riding the Specialized Dolce base model. I started with the stock Riva saddle, but upgraded to the Oura Expert Gel earlier this summer because I wanted to have a less-upright position on the bike, and when I did that on the Riva saddle I would quickly revert back because of "soft tissue discomfort" "up front". The Oura was the only seat my LBS had in stock at the time.

So far I have liked the Oura. It has allowed me to make my pedaling more efficient and I have a slightly more aggressive position which helps my back to be less painful for long distances. However, when I get into my longer rides, 50-70 miles or so, I start to have sore sit-bones. In order to counteract this, I figured that I would upgrade from my Specialized shorts to the supposedly cloud-like Rapha classic shorts (if I'm going to be sitting on something for 8 hours, it better be comfortable).

The pads under my sit-bones ARE wonderful. I thought I was going to love these shorts. Then I found myself starting to scootch back on the seat, putting my sit bones off of the saddle padding and even the Rapha pad wasn't going to help with that. So, I figured out that I was having "soft tissue discomfort" "up front" again which was causing me to want to move back in the saddle. The pad in the Rapha shorts is quite thick in the middle front.

So, my question for this forum is thus: can it be that the Rapha shorts don't agree with me (making me potentially the only one to complain about anything but the price!) or is it the seat? Do I need a wider cutout? a longer cutout? ? ? ? I really want to like these shorts because of the padding under the sit bones. And I need to send them back soon if I really don't like them.

Thanks for the help. Let me know if I should post this elsewhere on the forum.