{"id":706,"date":"2006-02-15T07:59:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-15T07:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/?p=706"},"modified":"2006-02-15T07:59:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-15T07:59:00","slug":"the-things-i-do-for-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2006\/02\/15\/the-things-i-do-for-cycling\/","title":{"rendered":"The things I do for cycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"it'sAs some of you will know, I have been, as Munky<\/a> put it, “a martyr to [my] saddles”. I have spent years<\/i> hunting for the right one. Shorter distances are not an issue. Longer distances most certainly are. The problem is that I suffer dreadfully from crushing and friction burns on delicate female squishy bits. If it were just raw patches on my arse I could cope.<\/p>\n

Now, whenever a question regarding ladies on bikes comes up, most people think first of Myra’s Bike Pages<\/a>. Indeed, Myra does have a page on bicycle saddles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I tell you: I could write a book on saddles. She’s got nothing on me. I have a collection of saddles at home – and those don’t include the ones I’ve given away over the years to girlie cycling friends struggling to find a suitable seat.<\/p>\n

In the last couple of years or so I have been using Terry saddles<\/a> on all my bikes (except for the Pinarello, which has a Selle Italia<\/a> SLK). On Fingal, my tourer, I’ve been using a Ti Race saddle<\/a>, which has been about the best I’ve found so far, and has seen me through a couple of Dun Runs. On Max, the MTB, I’ve been using a Terry Elia, which they don’t make any more but which is pretty similar to the Damselfy<\/a>, although with a slightly narrower cutout. I’ve moved that to Shackleton (the Pompino) for reasons I shall explain in a moment.<\/p>\n

I’ve just seen the Zero X<\/a>. Hmm. Might have to think about that one.<\/p>\n

The problem is that I have lumps in the crease at the top of each inside thigh, in the skin over the anterior arch of the pelvis. As far as I can tell this is because the cutout in the Race saddle is too wide, and so, even though the saddle is carefully beaked to put the weight on my sit bones, there is still weight going on the anterior arch just because the entirety of my girlie bits sit in the cutout. The saddle is also slightly too wide just in front of the sit bones, so the inside of my thighs rub and I get friction and inflamed hair follicles as a result.<\/p>\n

Still with me? I know. It’s not pleasant. But these are common problems for girls on bikes, you know. It’s a particular issue on the fixed, because spinning at 170rpm exacerbates any friction problems. This is why I swapped my Elia onto Shackleton, because it’s narrower than the Ti Race. Unfortunately it also has quite a narrow slot – too narrow, so now I get painful squishy bits at high spin rates, which is terribly distracting.<\/p>\n

In desperation I borrowed Munky’s Brooks Swift, at the suggestion of Fixed Phil (AKA The Torque Master). I stuck it on the Pompino and had a go on the turbo I borrowed from Bags (must get that back to her). It was nearly perfect, although without the cutaway it was painful on the aforementioned squishy bits (for those of you desperate for clarification, I particularly mean the clitoral area).<\/p>\n

Fixed Phil came to my rescue again, and pointed me towards Dr Underhill<\/a> and her range of retro-fitted Brooks saddles. I have been corresponding with her colleague for about four months now, and they have been very helpful.<\/p>\n

But I need at least two saddles, and at $199 a pop plus shipping and import duty, I can’t buy two of the retrofitted Swifts. I’m still saving up for one. I need to find an alternative that I can ride until I’ve saved up enough for another.<\/p>\n

So this morning saw me trying to measure the distance between my sit bones. First of all I tried the “sitting on a piece of paper” method, but couldn’t tell which bits of the indentations were caused by my buttocks and which by the bones. So that left me with the “get a ruler and poke your arse with your thumbs” method, giving me a rough estimate of 140mm (but I got that consistently over three attempts, so it must be pretty close).<\/p>\n

This explains why the SLR Gel Flow saddle that I bought before Christmas, at 134mm, was (by my estimate at the time) 5mm too narrow.<\/p>\n

It didn’t half cause some raised eyebrows in the office, though. Try explaining to non-cycling work colleagues why you are pressing a shatterproof ruler up against your arse while sticking it out – which you need to do to get a good feel of the pointy bits – and feeling around with your thumbs. They nod and smile but you can just tell they think you’re completely nuts and possibly sexually perverted.<\/p>\n

Which I am. But not like that<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As some of you will know, I have been, as Munky put it, “a martyr to [my] saddles”. I have spent years hunting for the right one. Shorter distances are not an issue. Longer distances most certainly are. The problem is that I suffer dreadfully from crushing and friction burns on delicate female squishy bits. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany"],"yoast_head":"\nThe things I do for cycling ~ Singularity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2006\/02\/15\/the-things-i-do-for-cycling\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The things I do for cycling ~ Singularity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As some of you will know, I have been, as Munky put it, “a martyr to [my] saddles”. I have spent years hunting for the right one. 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