Just bought my first road bike and put it on a trainer for the winter. Still tweaking the saddle and such for a more comfortable ride but I’m not there yet.
I measured the width of my seatbones, bought a fitting saddle, mounted it at the right front/aft position and height, and literally all of the problems I’d had for 20 years disappeared.
I brought a hex key to adjust my seat and just went riding. Test, adjust, test, adjust.
Some of the things I’ve spent money on that has not done anything for my riding comfort is a seat dampener, so maybe skip that one if you were thinking about it.
There’s also a break-in period for any setting, I’ve found. My ass used to hurt a lot after riding a bit but now it doesn’t. Your body will adjust- the important thing is to make sure you’re not riding in position that puts unnecessary stress on your spine or something.
Old thread, but a mix of saddle position, saddle height, and saddle type. Sometimes playing with the tilt of your bars, too. And grips can make a huge difference.
My city ebike has a mid stock saddle, but after moving it back and adjusting the tilt so that it’s like a 1 degree decline, it helps make it a lot more comfortable (male).
My mountain bike had a terrible stock saddle that made my groin fall asleep. I switched to a saddle from these guys:
Which is rock hard, but has good scalloping for my bones and blood flow. So even though it isn’t plush, I can ride it for ages or back to back days without going numb in an hour. Granted, you aren’t on the saddle much for downhill, but it’s great for earning your turns on singletrack with lots of uphill.
I just replaced the standard seat with a bigger, more padded seat meant for a totally different kind of bike so I wasn’t just sitting on basically a metal wedgie device. Looks a bit funny having a beach cruiser style seat on a mountain bike, but IDGAF about its aesthetic. I care about my ass not hurting.
Next thing I’d do is probably replace the handlebars with a Y style one instead of the straight bar. I’m not tryna go hella fast that I need to bend forward to lower my resistance.
Make sure your saddle is the right width for your butt bones. A bike shop can measure for you.
That’s 50% of the battle. The grim reality is for some people, there’s only usually 1 or 2 styles of seats that will be comfortable for them, and it can be brutally expensive to figure this out if you try to do so yourself (not trying to push a fit, but…). Some people seem to be saddle ambivalent, I got a buddy like that, like you could stick him on a plastic 1970s banana seat and he’d be fine. But if you are like me, my butts pretty selective.
Case in point, I’m a stick of a person (6 foot, 165lbs), and for some unknown reason I have a crazy wide sitbone width, like my road bike saddle is something crazy like 168mm wide. Figuring that out was half the battle. But I still couldn’t get comfortable, and I’ve tried pretty much every manufacturer between my mountain bike and my road bike in the first half dozen years. My findings were for mountain bikes, my saddle has to be a WTB saddle, and it doesn’t really matter which one, but WTB or bust. It seems to be something with the general profile of the shape, not so much the padding. Whereas with my road bike, Specialized branded saddles seem to work best. Especially the ones with the Mimic insert, which are actually marketed towards ladies, but my bike fitter put me on one a few years ago and I swear by that thing now.
Unless you get a bike fit, it can take a long while, a lot of adjustments, and probably some new components (saddle, handlebars, grips, etc.).
Is there anything in particular that bothers you during a longer ride session? Hands? Shoulders? Feet? Ass?
If so, find what might be causing those issues (i.e. YouTube bike fitting videos), and then work from there.
When I was tweaking my road bike, I would literally go out on rides with some hex keys, adjust one thing just a little, and see how that felt. Eventually, I nailed it down, so even a 240km ride was quite comfortable.
Now, getting the same comfort out of my vintage mountain bike or folding bike hasn’t been so easy. LOL
and probably some new components
Especially saddles in my experience. Saddles are like shoes: even two different models from the same manufacturer can fit very differently. Posture makes a difference, too. I have a box full of saddles that I have accumulated over years of trial-and-error on various bikes.
The frustrating thing about saddles, I guess just like shoes, is that no review will let you know whether it will work for you or not.
I also have a collection of saddles, several of which are “the best saddle you can get” offering “extreme comfort”, yet they aren’t on my bike(s).
Then new riders get the idea that big, soft, cushioned saddles will make them more comfortable. For most people, this type of saddle just makes things worse. And those “skinny, flat, hard” saddles might actually be the best option for some!
I believe there are Selle Italia dealers who offer demo programs for their saddles. I’m sure other brands do the same, but it’s a very rare service. Honestly, more bike shops should do it themselves, because I guarantee they’d sell more saddles if people were confident they’d be able to find the right one without buying one after another.
