Cycling UK Forum

I was hoping you kind folk might be able to help with some discomfort that I'm having.

Since returning to cycling 4 months ago, I've struggled a bit with getting comfortable on the saddle. I'm close to 3000km in that time, on a variety of bikes and a variety of saddles. I've had a few instances of penile numbness to go with the general feeling of discomfort.

I just can't get the saddle position right - level feels like my gentleman vegetables are getting pummelled and tilting forwards a touch and I feel like I'm falling off the saddle (as well as increased pressure on my hands).

My height of 203cm doesn't help. My bikes are generally 61cm/XXL but that's maybe not large enough.

I've watched a whole load of videos on bike fit this week and I think that my handlebars are possibly too low compared to my saddle. I think I possibly also need to wear some undershorts to offer some additional support.

I did a training ride on Sunday night. 38km, 1hr 7min, which is very fast for me. On a flat course, with no time out the saddle. I'd also adjusted my saddle to exactly level.

I had some numbness and discomfort at the time, but 5 days later, it's still aching a bit. My working week in a forestry machine bouncing around a woodland probably hasn't helped, but I was hoping that it would have settled down a bit.

No issues with sensation or sexual function. It's just aching at about 2/10 on the scale of nothing to standing on a Lego brick.....

Has anyone else had similar issues?

Please could we have a side-on picture (or video) with you in the riding position with both feet on the pedals?

Jonathan

Jdsk wrote: ↑26 Aug 2022, 5:51pm Please could we have a side-on picture (or video) with you in the riding position with both feet on the pedals?

Jonathan

When I read "could we please have a side-on picture..." I worried for a moment!

I'll get a photo this evening. I have already changed the seat position on the offending bike, but not by much.

: - )

Jonathan

Jon in Sweden wrote: ↑26 Aug 2022, 5:45pm I just can't get the saddle position right - level feels like my gentleman vegetables are getting pummelled and tilting forwards a touch and I feel like I'm falling off the saddle (as well as increased pressure on my hands).

That sounds like your saddle is not far back enough. I suggest you read 531colin's bike fit guide.

https://wheel-easy.org.uk/wp-content/up ... -2017a.pdf

When I changed my saddle position to take account of reduced fitness, I moved it back in 5mm increments and used 531colin's tip of riding on a slight upward incline at my usual level of effort while gripping the bars lightly to judge when the saddle was roughly in the right position, i.e. when the slight increase in power output prompted by the change in gradient caused me to start pulling on the bars slightly. In other words, instead of my hands resting lightly on the tops of the bars, they lifted up slightly under the extra power output, and my fingers started to press lightly against the underside of the bars.

Conversely, you could also use the same method to indicate if your saddle is currently too far forward, i.e. if your hands do not lift from the bars when going up a fairly gentle gradient at a slightly increased power output. However, feeling that you are falling forward and weight on the hands would be fairly conclusive for me.

Correct saddle position alone might or might not be enough to fix perineum discomfort/numbness, but it is essential to get the saddle position correct before doing anything else, such as changing the saddle tilt or trying a different saddle.

Jon in Sweden wrote: ↑26 Aug 2022, 5:45pm I did a training ride on Sunday night. 38km, 1hr 7min, which is very fast for me. On a flat course, with no time out the saddle.

Even on a flat course I would be looking to get out of the saddle briefly. Even most supposedly flat courses will have points where it makes sense to get out of the saddle, e.g. to get back up to speed after making a turn.

Jdsk wrote: ↑26 Aug 2022, 5:51pm Please could we have a side-on picture (or video) with you in the riding position with both feet on the pedals?

Jonathan

This is a very short video of me cycling. My wife is rather technologically inept and managed to video her feet mostly, get an extremely short video of me actually cycling and miss the most important position to photograph (right let at full extension). Nevermind!

https://youtube.com/shorts/YmVRfb-Rgtk?feature=share

slowster wrote: ↑26 Aug 2022, 6:34pm

Jon in Sweden wrote: ↑26 Aug 2022, 5:45pm I just can't get the saddle position right - level feels like my gentleman vegetables are getting pummelled and tilting forwards a touch and I feel like I'm falling off the saddle (as well as increased pressure on my hands).

That sounds like your saddle is not far back enough. I suggest you read 531colin's bike fit guide.

https://wheel-easy.org.uk/wp-content/up ... -2017a.pdf

When I changed my saddle position to take account of reduced fitness, I moved it back in 5mm increments and used 531colin's tip of riding on a slight upward incline at my usual level of effort while gripping the bars lightly to judge when the saddle was roughly in the right position, i.e. when the slight increase in power output prompted by the change in gradient caused me to start pulling on the bars slightly. In other words, instead of my hands resting lightly on the tops of the bars, they lifted up slightly under the extra power output, and my fingers started to press lightly against the underside of the bars.

Conversely, you could also use the same method to indicate if your saddle is currently too far forward, i.e. if your hands do not lift from the bars when going up a fairly gentle gradient at a slightly increased power output. However, feeling that you are falling forward and weight on the hands would be fairly conclusive for me.

Correct saddle position alone might or might not be enough to fix perineum discomfort/numbness, but it is essential to get the saddle position correct before doing anything else, such as changing the saddle tilt or trying a different saddle.

Jon in Sweden wrote: ↑26 Aug 2022, 5:45pm I did a training ride on Sunday night. 38km, 1hr 7min, which is very fast for me. On a flat course, with no time out the saddle.

Even on a flat course I would be looking to get out of the saddle briefly. Even most supposedly flat courses will have points where it makes sense to get out of the saddle, e.g. to get back up to speed after making a turn.

Thank you for the lengthy reply!

If anything, I've always found that my saddle feels like it's too far back. It's not that I'm having to reach for the handle bars, just that my hips feel like they want to be further forward in relation to the cranks. I think that's why I'm inclined to sit too far forward on the saddle. Let me know what you think from the photos and video.

Thanks again.

_DSC0891 by 531colin, on Flickr

Looks like you are on a childs bike!!

I was 67 when that photo was taken, and I never was a racer.

Shove the saddle as far back as it will possibly go......and then you will very likely need a long layback seatpost.
What is the seat tube angle?

Edit,,,,just read somewhere you are 6'8" .....thats going to be a difficulty.
6'8" and a short wheelbase road bike is really going to be a difficulty.

Bike fit aside, You’re a big fellow with probably wide sit bones. I imagine you could be resting weight on a lot of that central tender bit. Do you know where your bones are on the saddle? If they are on the edge of a curved saddle there won’t be much support.
Have you tried a wide saddle with a cutout or at least a relief channel. Something like the Selle Italia L3 ladies Diva.

i'm with 531colin - far from being stretched anywhere you look very cramped on there!

I'd certainly like to see the saddle further back but also raised a little combined with a longer stem. your bar.saddle oddset is quite small, looks to be under 5cm, i'm only 178cm but my long arms, tip to tip is over 200cm! i get the best comfort with a silly offset as you can see in the picture. (those are 6" tiles on the wall)

The second bike has less saddle/bar offset which is fine for tootling about and riding off tarmac but on long road rides my derrier complains much sooner! In fact since the picture was taken i've changed the stem and its now set up with the bars significantly lower, horizontal to the top of the steerer, in pursuit of comfort.

You mention underwear, do your shorts have a pad fitted? If so extra padding could be counter productive. Check the pad isn't creasing in wear, i've had kit that was unrideable because the pad was so uncomfortable. You may need a different, wider saddle but i think if you address the fit first you may not need to.

Your frame is 531 with a threaded headset. That indicates that it is probably 20+ years old. I suspect that at the time it was about as large a frame as was realistically possible/practical with 531 tubing and the tube lengths and diameters in which it was then available. Was it custom made for you? 531colin is a frame designer and knows far more about the subject than me, but I suspect that a frame that is designed for you - or an off the peg frame that fitted you - should have a longer top tube and possibly a shallower seat angle.

I would expect (but I do not know for certain) that even the standard tubesets available now for steel frames, such as generic cro-mo and heat treated cro-mo (or the Reynolds branded equivalents, i.e. 525 and 725 respectively), and welded or lugless construction instead of lugs, would allow a bigger frame to be built with more suitable dimensions than was possible with 531. In addition I would expect that the now widely available and used larger diameter tubing and 1 1/8" steerers would be far more suitable for you.

I am not very familiar with what is available in the way of off-the-shelf very large frame sizes, but I think Surly is one brand which is reckoned to cater well to very tall people. Unfortunately it does not make a fast light bike similar to yours, but you might find that even a more touring/gravel oriented bike from Surly in their largest size was better for you than your current bike. I would suggest you take a look at the geometry of some of Surly's bikes and compare some of the measurements with your own bike, especially the effective top tube length*.

* However, you also need to allow for any difference in seat angle: I think you might need to add or subtract ~15mm for each degree difference. The Surly Disc Trucker has a 635mm effective top tube with a 72 degree seat angle in the largest (64cm) size, which I think is a lot larger than the largest sizes of road bikes sold by US brands like Trek and Specialized.

https://surlybikes.com/bikes

I have seen two custom road frames for very tall people which looked to me as though the builder had properly designed the frame to meet the rider's needs. One was a Dave Yates which had very long 753 seat stays, and the other is roubaixtuesday's Swallow, which similarly used 953 tubing: viewtopic.php?t=137325.

In your shoes I would try to find an off the shelf frame/bike that fitted me better, whether new or second hand. A bike like a Surly Disc Trucker for example might not be the *type* of bike that you want, but what matters above everything is that the bike fits you and enables you to get a good position, and much of the performance difference could probably be addressed by fitting a pair of lighter wheels with fast tyres.

In the meantime, as 531colin says you probably need to put the saddle as far back as possible on your current bike (taking account of any limit markers on the rail). It is not possible to see how much set back your current seatpost allows, but the usual recommendation on this forum for a seatpost with a lot of set back is this one sold by Jtek with ~30mm set back:

black - https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/seat-posts/ ... -x-272-mm/
matt silver - https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/seat-posts/ ... er-272-mm/

(Velo Orange sell the same seatpost in a shorter 300m length, badged as its 'Gran Cru' model.)

However, I doubt 30mm would be enough in your case. You might therefore do better to get an Ergotec Futura seatpost with up to 50mm set back.

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/ergotec ... ost-27.2mm

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/seat-posts/ ... -x-272-mm/

There have been a few threads about the Futura seatpost which you can find by using the forum search function, but the main points are that it is heavy, crude, brutal and ugly, but effective. The best solution however is a frame that fits properly without needing a seatpost like the Futura.

NB The above seatposts are 27.2mm, which is the most common seatpost diameter and what I would expect your 531 frame to require, but you would need to check before buying.

Finally, I think Paulatic makes a very good point about your sit bone width. Specialized bike shops have an 'assometer' to measure sit bone width, so if you have a shop in your area with one it would probably be worth visiting to get measured. Alternatively, it's possible to make a DIY measurer, e.g. using plasticine or similar rolled out on a flat board and covered with cling film or similar. Sit bone width varies a bit with pelvic tilt, so I presume you need to sit on the assometer with a similar forward tilt as when on the bike.

I’ve a very simple way to measure your bone width. Wish I’d patented it before Assometer or ID Match. It’s Stringonemeter
Familiarise yourself with the bits of bone you predominantly sit on. Take your clothes off and hold a piece of string taught between the two points. Marked by pinching with finger and thumb now hold against a measure.
I think the rule of thumb is to now add 20mm for saddle width but IME it pays to put that piece of string on a saddle and see where it sits and what lies between the ends.

Bit of discussion here viewtopic.php?t=150784 on pelvic anatomy and saddles.

If you want to measure the width of the bones you actually weight bear on when you are on your bike, you need to do it with your pelvis tilted forward at the appropriate angle.

Note; in the OPs static pictures, he is sitting with his back in extension. Few people ride like this.
In his moving video, he is riding with his back in (slight) flexion, so his pelvic tilt is different in the 2 situations.

Maybe a recumbent, if you've got the shekels?

When I was designing lots of bikes for Spa, I had a number of good people who would test ride bikes for me, just for the love of it.
I used to be over 5'10" in my socks before I started shrinking, and 11 stone or thereabouts.
I can easily design a bike for my height and weight. Somebody of different weight has to put up with some sort of average guess in production bikes, I don't know anybody who makes production bikes in the same size but different stiffness for different rider weight.
One size either side of mine is realistic, two sizes is pushing it.
My "big" test rider was about 6'5" and north of 20 stone. (came to me originally because he couldn't get wheels to last a year)
My tiny test rider said she was five feet (and no inches)

6'8" (is that right?) is so far outside most peoples' experience that you need to go looking for some people with real world experience.
(At the time, my big rider wasn't too impressed with his Trucker....he got chain scrape on both sides of the front mech. cage if he was pushing.....mind you, he could push!

"Foxyrider's" bar drop is very unusual for recreational riders.