When I got home my bum hurt SO badly. Not just bruised cheeks but a feeling that I’d been riding with the bones in my ass being forced outwards by the saddle and my tendons (being weakly out of practise) couldn’t hold my hip bones in my pelvis any more. I couldn’t get out of the saddle and rode in a tiddly gear. When I did have to force myself out of the saddle, it was excruciating to sit back down again. The pain ran all down my legs, made every muscle cramp and caused the backs of my legs to ache for two days – which has never happened. I decided that something had to be done so I went to the bike shop after work yesterday.
The nice man asked if I needed help and duly pointed me towards the saddles. I began to explain my discomfort of separated bum-bones. He waved a piece of neoprene stuck to cardboard at me and asked with a twinkle in his eyes, “Have you ever had your sit bones measured?”
“Sounds like fun,” I said, always up for a neat way to find the right solution to a painful problem.
It wasn’t really any fun at all. I sat on the neoprene pad with my feet on a step for a few secs then he measured the dents my bum bones made in the neoprene with the graduated scale on the piece of card. I was disappointed that my bum dents were a little squidgey. Not enough riding. But my bum bones are 14 cms apart which apparently is “quite normal” but then he added I was like him and would need to find a wider saddle, which tells me that the average saddle is not made for the average rider. So we set-to with the tape measure, measuring saddles and I also decided I wanted a longer one with long rails on it to make it adjustable in the fore-and-aft direction. After all the effort I bought one the same as my MTB saddle because it’s always been comfy and it was.
At midnight last night there was a downpour. The kind of downpour that woke me up like a shot because it sounded like some horrendous natural disaster was occurring, or it could’ve been really cold outside because it sounded like the furnace starting. Eventually after shaking my head and putting my brain in first (if I were a cat I would’ve swivelled my ears a few times), I realised it was raining – really hard. I could feel the prospect of my ride to work thinning, but when I got up at 5:30 all was well and the sky was crystal clear. Good morning Orion, is your belt particularly long this morning or are you just pleased to see me? And… my leg bones were no longer disconnected from my pelvis bone by my old, hard, racing saddle.
Sorry “Terry Liberator,” this day you lose. I positively enjoyed the feeling of the old aches and pains being soothed by the new, softer support network of the “Specialised BodyGel”. Maybe I will manage to ride home too, so long as the sky is not falling again by then.
3 comments:
gel seats.
must be getting older ;)
i think he would have had problems finding my bum bones!
Interesting, I've never heard of a bike shop measuring the sit bones before. Of course it makes sense, there is an optimal saddle width for everyone, despite the fact some people think wider is better. My touring saddle (bought randomly on a trip after going into the first store I could find complaining madly of the saddle that was on the bike) is slightly wider than my beater saddle and I definitely find the beater more comfy.
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