beginner cyclist cut to shreds

xgtdec

Howdy All

Got my first bike a few weeks ago and headed out for the hills, had a great time and it sure beat biking in the gym, i have a trek 1.2 and the saddle is a Saddle Bontrager R1to my knowledge,

But without heading to the graphics...my eh...under carriage:(...is torn to shreds, like raw chub rub sorta thing, is this just something you have to break in when you start road biking, i have a pair of what seemed to be well padded cycling shorts and some under armour under them, i kinda thought that would be enough.....and advice for a noob rider on saddle sore??, please dont say get out and do more:rolleyes:

Lumen

Don't wear anything under your cycling shorts.

DirkVoodoo

Cycling shorts should really be worn commando, you want nothing between you and the chamois, it's meant to be like a glove. Anything that might cause friction between the two is a no-no.

Other than that, the saddle might not be right for you. It's a very personal thing there is no "perfect" saddle, just one that suits your shape and position. I would recommend trying a ride without the under armour, if it's still bad, consider getting some of those "test" saddles from a bike shop and see if you can find one that suits you.

It's also something you just get used to, like your fingers toughening up when you learn to play guitar.

Buns of steel man, buns of steel!

07Lapierre

Lose the underwear and "get out and do more"

niceonetom

Don't wear underwear under cycling shorts! Seams = trouble.

And don't persist with riding if you're in pain or your skin is raw - that's a sure fire way to get proper saddle sore that could potentially keep you off the bike for weeks.

Saddle choice and position is crucial too. Too low means excessive weight on the saddle leading to pressure, numbness pain etc. Too high can mean that your hip rock with each pedal stroke which leads to chaffing and other unpleasantness.

There is a certain amount of getting used to it as the flesh over your sit bones toughens up, but really, it shouldn't anything above very minor discomfort.

Chips Lovell

1. Underwear underneath your shorts = very bad idea.
2. Even without underwear, if you're new to cycling, it can take a while for your ass to get used to it.
3. If you have persistant ass pain, then a different saddle may be in order. Different strokes for different folks. Some saddles suit some people better than others.

Jawgap

A good handful of chamois cream might help.

DirkVoodoo

Wow, if you changed the title of this thread it could nearly pass as regular reading in a prison forum.

pprendeville

try going out in the nip altogehter. you might start a trend.

Captain Havoc

Something I use for the recovery process or if I think it's going to flair up are Scholl blister plasters, can't recommend them enough. I think time off the bike is the best healer though.

-Trek-

I had that same saddle on my 1.2 for a while. Makes for a great torture device in my opinion.

xgtdec

nothing under the cycling shorts.....noted...thats the sort of warning that should be on the bike sticker.....trek 1.2 €770..and wear nothing under your shorts you idiot!!!!!

For my own sake and your ill decline the starkers biking

Cheers Lads

Beasty

pprendeville wrote: »

try going out in the nip altogehter. you might start a trend.

I think the trend has already started (in Cork, at least)

Homme Enigmatique

If you are a bit tender still try a small bit of Baby Oil, Olive Oil or Bio Oil that you will be able to get in most chemists, should help until you get used to the saddle, also try & have the most relaxed position on your bike, try not to swing out of it, make sure that you use the right gears, have your position right & in no time at all you will eliminate this problem with other potential problems.

CarlosK

Trekmad wrote: »

I had that same saddle on my 1.2 for a while. Makes for a great torture device in my opinion.

I got a Trek 1.2 myself and find the saddle to be ok nowadays, however I couldn't say the same when I started out a few months back.

I was just wondering, I'm presuming that you replaced the saddle on your 1.2, what saddle did you go for? Or is there anyone out there who could recommend a decent saddle without paying crazy money for it?

xgtdec

I didnt replace it, im old skool in that i thought the saddle that comes with the bike is yer only man.....pffft modern bikes for ya

blorg

Saddles are a personal thing so what works for one person won't for another. You can only figure it out from trial and error. I did my first Wicklow 200 incidentally on an entry-level Bontrager saddle on a Trek and found it fine. I like Brooks traditional leather saddles personally for long-distance but I recognise this is an eccentric choice for a road bike and as such wouldn't suggest it to anyone else. They are also very much "crazy money" (as well as being crazy heavy.)

souter

Readers of a gentle persuasion may want to look away now.

I have a similar(?) problem, after 100+k I generally experience a tenderness in the taintal region, worst when climbing. A couple seconds out of the saddle brings some relief, at the cost of pain when sitting down.
I wear padded shorts, sometimes padded underpants as well, and always boxers as well.
Contra the overwhelming advice on this thread, I can't see how commando will help - my boxers are very soft old cotton yokes, though I haven't examined in detail the parts inflicted, they don't feel friction related, i.e. the pain goes away when I stop cycling (well a bit of constant tingling, but no worse when moving around).
A couple questions I guess: am I doing more harm than good with multiple padding? Would chamios cream be the silver bullet? Should I abandon the boxers? And why am I posting this on the internet?

Lumen

souter wrote: »

am I doing more harm than good with multiple padding? ... Should I abandon the boxers?

Hmmm....

Lumen wrote: »

Don't wear anything under your cycling shorts.

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Cycling shorts should really be worn commando,

07Lapierre wrote: »

Lose the underwear

niceonetom wrote: »

Don't wear underwear under cycling shorts!

el tonto wrote: »

1. Underwear underneath your shorts = very bad idea.

souter

Lumen wrote: »

Hmmm....

Quite. As an experiment this weekend I willl attempt 100+k sans boxers.
I remain to be convinced, but am a great believer in empiricisim.

Blowfish

souter wrote: »

Readers of a gentle persuasion may want to look away now.

I have a similar(?) problem, after 100+k I generally experience a tenderness in the taintal region, worst when climbing. A couple seconds out of the saddle brings some relief, at the cost of pain when sitting down.
I wear padded shorts, sometimes padded underpants as well, and always boxers as well.
Contra the overwhelming advice on this thread, I can't see how commando will help - my boxers are very soft old cotton yokes, though I haven't examined in detail the parts inflicted, they don't feel friction related, i.e. the pain goes away when I stop cycling (well a bit of constant tingling, but no worse when moving around).
A couple questions I guess: am I doing more harm than good with multiple padding? Would chamios cream be the silver bullet? Should I abandon the boxers? And why am I posting this on the internet?

It does depend on what you actually mean by 'tenderness'.

If it's 'chafing' or skin redness/sores then commando and/or chamois cream will definitely help. If your skin is fine and it's a bit more like 'muscular' tenderness then it's down to positioning, saddle choice or just plain getting used to long hours on the bike.

blorg

souter wrote: »

Quite. As an experiment this weekend I willl attempt 100+k sans boxers.
I remain to be convinced, but am a great believer in empiricisim.

Cycling is unquestionably more comfortable without underwear, especially over long distances. I do sometimes cycle with underwear myself, commuting or what have you, although rarely as much as 100km, 50km would be about the limit. Having said that I have never had a major problem from underwear.

However frankly your issue doesn't sound like it has anything to do with wearing underwear. It sounds to me like saddle position, probably your saddle is very slightly too high or the nose is tilted upwards. I'd check it with a spirit level. I've had a similar issue with some saddles which improved by fixing (dropping) the level. Other saddles just put pressure there that on a long cycle was very very annoying. It is the main reason I don't do modern saddles; some would be fine the first day but the next day I'd get that sort of pressure. My Brooks avoid it I think from a bit of a sag in the middle; if you are particularly susceptible to it and changing position doesn't help you might also want to consider a saddle with a cut-out in the middle.

souter

Blowfish, I think I've put in about as many hours on the saddle as I can, if there's muscles there not in shape their never going to get in shape.
Blorg, saddle, oh crap - I've always been a bit supercilious about people fiddling with their saddles, but I'm desperate enough to try it. Will look at the angle tonight. Fixing something by trial and error that takes 5 hours to manifest looks like a thankless task.
Hmm, just looked up Brooks, they have cut outs. I had a leather saddle for many decades and no problems with it. How long would it take to break in a leather saddle? I'm gearing up for Dublin - Youghal weekend after next, should manage a long spin this weekend, but that's it.

langdang

I found the standard saddle on my old Trek 1000 to be exactly the wrong design for proper support, + I suffered from awful chafing from it. (Domed saddle with all the pressure on the taint, and the "wings" of the saddle started too close to the front)

Saddle choice cab be counter-intuitive for new cyclists - they get pain and go for a bigger couchy type saddle which will often make things worse. A firm-ish saddle that supports you in the right places and is not wide enough to chafe in the wrong places, and some mileage to toughen yourself to the saddle is the way to go! And good shorts!

I switched it for a WTB Shadow, and all was well. It's fine for fitness/charity cycle types, I'll leave it to the more hardcore to suggest a more expensive race saddle.
The WTB shadow is narrower, so will help if the thighs/arse are chafing, and it has a channel down the middle to relieve some pressure on the taint.
And it's CHEAP! (I always use WTB on my mountain bike, and find them good, i sure there's road brands that are better but I can only recommend what I know!)

And yes, commando is not some hardcore cyclist thing : lycra + boxers is NEVER a good plan.

blorg

@souter- there is one Brooks with a cut-out (it is a recent modern innovation) but I don't find I need it. They have a sort of dip from the back to the front which takes pressure off that area. Personally I have found them comfortable from the start although they do break in and get more so. It wouldn't be completely broken in by one long spin this weekend but you would probably have an idea whether keeping it on for Youghal would be a good idea or not. For a racing bike I would suggest one of the narrow ones. My current favourite is a Swift. Unfortunately this is very expensive; the B17 narrow might be a slightly cheaper option.

Signal_ rabbit

+1 on the B17 narrow. Comfortable straight out of the box. Done over 10,000K on mine without any problems. Still hard to the touch but extremely comfortable.

niceonetom

For balance I fell I should point out that I tried a B17 a few years ago. It nearly ended me.

There really is no saddle that'll suit everyone.

souter

Appears to be a lottery alright. Am looking at the brooks imperial (with cut-out) for 100e in cycleways. A friend mentions a bike shop in Clonmel that lets you try the saddle on proper spin. Anyone know of any shops in Dublin offering similar?

DirkVoodoo

souter wrote: »

Appears to be a lottery alright. Am looking at the brooks imperial (with cut-out) for 100e in cycleways. A friend mentions a bike shop in Clonmel that lets you try the saddle on proper spin. Anyone know of any shops in Dublin offering similar?

I think cycleways do, as do others but I don't know specifics. They have "tester" saddles, regular models but awful bright orange so you won't be tempted to run away with them.

Like I said earlier, try as many as you can, you will find one that fits you. I've mentioned it before, but if you cut past the marketing bull, the fizik website has some information on saddle type and your own shape. For me it proved accurate as a fizik arione was quite uncomfortable on longer spins.

Single Malt

souter wrote: »

Appears to be a lottery alright. Am looking at the brooks imperial (with cut-out) for 100e in cycleways. A friend mentions a bike shop in Clonmel that lets you try the saddle on proper spin. Anyone know of any shops in Dublin offering similar?

Have Brooks saddles come down in price? That seems a very reasonable price

austinbyrne21

souter wrote: »

....Anyone know of any shops in Dublin offering similar?

I know Wheelworx do have testers with their Prologo saddles (presume their other brands too). The way they work their's is that you have to pay the price of the saddle up front, put on the vibrant green saddle, cycle around for as long as you need, come back and change it for that saddle if you liked it. Or pick another of the vibrant green Prologos and start the process all over again. So, in essence, you have to buy 'a' saddle anyway but you can chop and change the different styles until you find the one that suits you best.

blorg

Single Malt wrote: »

Have Brooks saddles come down in price? That seems a very reasonable price

I think we must have different ideas of reasonable. That is a 520g iron-railed saddle.

As Tom says, Brooks are not for everyone, I know other people who have tried them and really not got on. As such I wouldn't suggest them generally although they do work for me.

souter

Just spoke with cycleways and they don't do trial saddles, as such (presume you could extract some sort of comittment to take a return if persuasive enough), but they do have an arse-measuring machine.

Apparently they measure the width of the sit bones and match the saddle to that, then everything should be hunky dory. Believable?

Dirk, I looked up the fizik spine concept, it's a bit kungfu panda, but if I understand it everything is based on spine flexibility, so to play safe I should class myself a Bull (i.e. low flexibility) and get their Aliante?

DirkVoodoo

souter wrote: »

Dirk, I looked up the fizik spine concept, it's a bit kungfu panda, but if I understand it everything is based on spine flexibility, so to play safe I should class myself a Bull (i.e. low flexibility) and get their Aliante?

I'm a bull too. I didn't take much notice until I tried an arione and ended up with loads of numbness, went googling and found people reporting similar, in the end the fizik spine was the best explanation: low flexibility = crushing soft tissues. I had an aliante on my Ridley and loved it, so I bought another one for the planet-x and the arione has remained sitting in a box.

Wrapped up in bullplop, but the explanation is there underneath all the animations and animal names.

I can't remember where you get trial saddles, I thought it was cycleways but obviously not. Aliante gammas are quite cheap though, just as comfy as the other Aliante I have which is slightly higher up the model range.

mc1303

I had same problem , and found that waxing the crouch area helped me !!!:D

JIZZLORD

As a n00b also (2 months with a road bike ) all i can say is that the move from regular shorts to cycling shorts minus boxers and time has decreased my discomfort and allowed me to go on long cycles without having to hop off every few km and rub my groin while passers by watch bemused

anoble66

switched mine for a selle italia slr - personally I find it much more comfortable, friend also switched to the same saddle after finding his s-works saddle a pain in the hole.....could be worth looking at. PLus they are light at 135g

souter

I think the saddle isthe key. The saddle on my bike was a generic lump of convex plastic, swapped it for a more or less random slightly better saddle with cut aways and just did 130k w/o sensitive pain. My buttocks are somewhat tender but I can see that being addressed over time.

Single Malt

blorg wrote: »

I think we must have different ideas of reasonable. That is a 520g iron-railed saddle.

As Tom says, Brooks are not for everyone, I know other people who have tried them and really not got on. As such I wouldn't suggest them generally although they do work for me.

Fair point. When I think Brooks, I think Ti rails and more money