Sitz Bones

[ShawnoftheDread]

Just think about labor. You might forget your seat hurts.

[Tim Kelley]

It’ll get better with time. You could throw on a pair of padded shorts, in the meantime.

[Megabeth]

Sitting on the trainer does hurt the sitz bones more than being on the actual bike in motion. I think it’s mostly because you can coast, shift in your seat, stand up, wiggle, etc. on your regular bike. The trainer is just a one trick hurty pony.

I agree with Tim: time and get thee a nice pair of women specific bike shorts.

Keep an eye on your seat itself. I did a seat switch last year and angels now sing hallelujah with just that one small change.

If it continues, splurge on a professional fitting, your seat angle and positioning can really make a difference.

[Greenbelt]

New/improved saddle maybe? Even good saddles do wear out eventually, even if it doesn’t look like it. If I start getting butt weary after commutes, I just get a new saddle and get re-fit a bit and that seems to solve problem. Plus new padded shorts! Good investment.

[dasgeh]

Thanks, guys. I am wearing women’s specific, padded bike shorts (I think — there’s a chance I’ve grab a pair of my husbands…). I had a profi fit and got a new saddle back in 2009. Since then I’ve ridden the saddle about 2 years worth and had 2 kids. Does it make sense that the saddle would wear out (it looks fine) and/or my “fit” would change?

Which leads me to a related question: does fit change with weight? I’m toting around some more pounds than I had pre-pregnancy, which I totally intend to get rid of (at some point). If I get fit now, will I want another fit in x months when I’m 30-ish pounds lighter?

[Tim Kelley]

It sounds like you’re doing everything right. Probably just a serious case of just a case of rule 5 then.

[baiskeli]

Could be the pelvic girdle changes permanently after childbirth, changing the width of the sit bones. You might need a new saddle to fit.

[Greenbelt]

I have worn out saddles. As in, butt felt much better with new saddle even though the old one didn’t look too bad.

I’m pretty heavy though (200lbs), so I’m sure that makes a difference. I wear out everything on my bikes pretty fast.

[Amalitza]

This is the first year that (fingers and toes crossed) I’m actually riding all the way through the winter, rather than just saying I’m going to and then not doing it. That means that most years, in the spring, I’ve gotten back on the bike after 3 or 4 months off of it. Legs need to work up to handling any real time riding, but so does the seat– too much time on the bike, too early, leads not just to sore legs (from exertion) but sore saddle area too. Generally, I kind of work them up to normal mileage together.

Then there was last spring, when I finally decided to replace the saddle that came with my FX, which had an unfortunate tendency to squish sensitive body parts that really shouldn’t be squished, and I was getting tired of constantly trying to readjust it to find the apparently non-existent sweet spot (tilt up, saddle nose jams pelvis; tilt down, I slide forward while riding). In retrospect, that saddle put quite a bit of my weight forward on my pubic bone rather than on my sit bones, which was not good. So I stopped by the bike shop at the end of a particularly annoying ride and bought a new saddle. It took me no more than 10 minutes (maybe 5) to decide that I was probably going to like the new saddle eventually. It took me 2 or 3 weeks to actually like it. Since it put all my weight right on my sit bones (good!) that weren’t used to supporting that weight (bad!), that’s how long it took before my butt stopped feeling sore and bruised. I was, at that time, riding between 30 minutes and 90 minutes a day, had *just* worked up to my legs being ok with that after not riding all winter, and didn’t want to cut back on my riding time and let my legs get lazy again, so I just kept riding my normal amount instead of cutting back and getting used to the new saddle gradually, which might have been the better idea. Definitely the less painful idea. But sometimes, I am stubborn.

It hurt as soon as I got on the bike. I almost walked right back into the shop and told them to take it back off, but I decided to give it a fair shot and and least try it. By the time I got home, I could tell the difference, and knew that it would be better for me, and why, than the old one. But it hurt for a couple weeks until I got used to it.

So, I am going to say, give it at least two weeks before deciding to need to be refit.

[DaveK]

@baiskeli 43636 wrote:

Could be the pelvic girdle changes permanently after childbirth, changing the width of the sit bones. You might need a new saddle to fit.

I was thinking the same thing, the previous saddle might not necessarily fit as well now. I’d give it a couple of weeks with the old saddle to see if it’s just a lack of riding before I made any major changes though.

[KLizotte]

I can’t imagine your fit NOT changing after two kids and all the other stuff. Plus you are still healing from giving birth and everything is realigning itself internally. I don’t have much to offer except that if it hurts while riding it sounds like you have a fit problem. If you hurt the next day only, it is probably only a matter of those muscles being out of shape. Also, you are probably still trying to sit on the bike like you were on the e-bike which means you may be trying to sit too much upright.

I went thru four saddles before I found one that fit well (Selle Italia Lady).

I second what MegaBeth said. Trainers are harder to ride than the real thing.

I wish you the best of luck!

[baiskeli]

Been a while since I discussed pelvic girdles. The last time was childbirth classes. I was overdue.

[dasgeh]

@baiskeli 43676 wrote:

Been a while since I discussed pelvic girdles. The last time was childbirth classes. I was overdue.

so were both of my kids.

[Dirt]

Two things:
1) Getting fit for a saddle helped me when I bumped up my mileage/time in the saddle. I went to Freshbikes and had them do it. It puts the saddle padding EXACTLY where it needs to be.
2) In the short term, don’t be afraid to wear 2 pairs of shorts. When I was using Brooks Saddles, that’s how I used to help break them in.

Give it a try.

Pete

[GuyContinental]

@Dirt 43681 wrote:

1) Getting fit for a saddle helped me when I bumped up my mileage/time in the saddle. I went to Freshbikes and had them do it. It puts the saddle padding EXACTLY where it needs to be.

Amen- I did the same and discovered that for a pretty skinny guy I have a wide set o’ sit bones. Clovis put me on a 155mm (the widest) Specialized Romin (male specific) and it worked so well that I just put the same saddle on all of my road bikes (kind of scared to mess with it frankly). I’d been using super skinny saddles for years (thought process being skinny butt = skinny butt bones) and never really got comfortable. I think that you *can* do a rough measurement by sitting on a memory foam chair with your feet off the ground and measure the distance between the protrusions but fore/aft measurements are tough.

[Author]

Posts