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A saddle question


Longjohn
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Since I started riding serious miles when my boys were in high school I have never not rode until this past two years. My new bike has a really nice saddle that lines up with my sit bones, the problem is it hurts my butt. Is that because my butt is out of shape? It feels like I have bruises right over my sit bones.

I’m going to have to switch off to a saddle from one of my other bikes at least until the soreness goes away. I would love to be able to leave that Lynskey saddle on there. Possibly I need a slightly wider saddle? The soreness is over my sit bones but toward the inside.

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I would say because you're out of shape (or not used to riding), and here's the reason I say it. When I started riding after being off the bike for 3 months recovering from surgery, my butt was sore also. I too have the proper saddle because I did the static fit using the color changing pad, and dynamic fit. After a short time my butt was fine again. Just my 2 cents.

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I’d say your tushie is not accustomed to riding after a two year hiatus. Ride it out. But saddle size is something to consider. Does your local shop have an ass-meter? These are used to measure the width of your sit bones. That knowledge can then be used to buy the correct width saddle. Compare the width of your old saddle to that on the new bike. If they are the same, then suck it up buttercup and ride yourself back into shape.

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I've had the same saddle on my bike for may years.  I've never had saddle issues until the last few years.

Now that I ride less, each year for the first few rides (more or less) I get a sore butt.   A few days ago, I rode 30 miles with no pain in the ass.  For me at least the pain slowly goes away after I ride more often, until the day it doesn't hurt, and I don't notice it doesn't hurt. 

You may just need to ride a few miles more and more often  (assuming your heart is up to the challenge) to see how this works out.  

If here is still pain... then I'd consider a different saddle.

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48 minutes ago, donkpow said:

Is that a racing saddle?

Basically, the bike is a gravel touring bike. A lot of people buy Lynskeys for gravel races. I don’t plan to race but where I live a gravel bike makes sense. My first ride on Wednesday was 5 miles and it was gravel. I might have bruised my tush on that ride.

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I'd probably hold your old favorite saddle next to the new one and find the sweet spot. Set the new saddle so that the sweet spot is the same distance from H-bars as the old one. It sounds to me like your saddle is too far back or your form is off. Start with the basics again. Rotate your pelvis forward. I'm guessing the two saddles are not dimensionally the same.

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8 minutes ago, Airehead said:

You are also very thin right now. That factors in. 

That might have a lot to do with it. Since getting active this week I lost the weight I gained. I’m getting less strict on the heart healthy diet and trying to gain some weight. I still won’t eat junk. 

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If with all of the weight you've lost, I would bet you don't have as much padding on the back side as you used to. It may take some work to get things back where they should be or to get used to the new normal.  It may completely change the way your saddle fits.

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16 minutes ago, UglyBob said:

If with all of the weight you've lost, I would bet you don't have as much padding on the back side as you used to. It may take some work to get things back where they should be or to get used to the new normal.  It may completely change the way your saddle fits.

In Rattlecan’s over 50 Facebook group I noticed the casual riders that ride up to 20 miles on a ride swear by the fluffy saddles. The folks who ride 50+ miles say no way. I have a box of saddles downstairs, maybe I’ll try one with a little padding until I get my butt toughened up. It’s not hard to find my sit bones, there is no padding over them.

563D93F8-6390-4B8A-B3EC-A0040D87B2E5.jpeg.9e3c8d7369a881c00e9562e35300a999.jpeg 
 

As you can see in this photo I took yesterday there is no padding on this saddle.

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9 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

That Lynskey saddle has 0 padding. It’s as hard as a rock.

Definitely switch to the saddle(s) you used to ride.  That is, assuming you were comfortable then, you will be more likely to be comfortable on it now.  Also, a new bike may have a different geometry, so the saddle height, angle, and fore-aft position will not match what you are used to and will require some time to determine optimal comfort placement.

I ride the same saddle on three bikes, but as they are different model years, they all are slightly different.  Even so, it is about as close as I can get.

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30 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

ride the same saddle on three bikes, but as they are different model years, they all are slightly different.  Even so, it is about as close as I can get.

I was trying to do that, I had the same saddle on two bikes. When I went to buy the same saddle on the third bike it was discontinued.

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1 minute ago, Longjohn said:

I was trying to do that, I had the same saddle on two bikes. When I went to buy the same saddle on the third bike it was discontinued.

Yeah, but you can at least put one of them on the new bike.  I took my third Avatar saddle off my Roubaix to put on the Diverge. The Diverge came with a different saddle that was close but no cigar despite also being a Specialized Body Geometry and similar seat bone width.  Seemingly it was the same as an Avatar but with an inch shorter nose, but whatever it was, it didn't do it.  So, my Roubaix is saddle-less, but my road, gravel, and MTB all have Avatars. 

I think chasing a completely new saddle for comfort is much harder than first seeing if the two "good" ones you have will work. 

But, as folks said, and you know, cycling asses take time to adjust again after time off.  And that's for a bike that already is dialed in fit-wise.  The Lynskey, while fitting you pretty darn well, is unlikely to be be as dialed in as your other bikes, and will take time to 1) get the saddle in the perfect spot and 2) for your ass to be "toughened" up enough.

You'll  get there again!

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2 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Yeah, but you can at least put one of them on the new bike.  I took my third Avatar saddle off my Roubaix to put on the Diverge. The Diverge came with a different saddle that was close but no cigar despite also being a Specialized Body Geometry and similar seat bone width.  Seemingly it was the same as an Avatar but with an inch shorter nose, but whatever it was, it didn't do it.  So, my Roubaix is saddle-less, but my road, gravel, and MTB all have Avatars. 

I think chasing a completely new saddle for comfort is much harder than first seeing if the two "good" ones you have will work. 

But, as folks said, and you know, cycling asses take time to adjust again after time off.  And that's for a bike that already is dialed in fit-wise.  The Lynskey, while fitting you pretty darn well, is unlikely to be be as dialed in as your other bikes, and will take time to 1) get the saddle in the perfect spot and 2) for your ass to be "toughened" up enough.

You'll  get there again!

It seems everyone ignores form during these types of discussions. Form requires discipline and adaptation. Form changes over time. While I don't think that is the primary issue here I believe it is part of issue.

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I had that other saddle mounted and was putting on my bike shorts when it started storming again.  It’s about seventy degrees, maybe I should take off my heart monitor and go for a ride? If I damage the monitor I will be billed $2,200. I don’t think the dumb thing works anyway but I didn’t damage it. The one township that my road is on just dumped fresh clean gravel so my pretty bike shouldn’t get too dirty. My township didn’t use gravel this year, they used milled blacktop that was removed from a blacktop road that was getting repaved. It’s pretty clean but it’s all washboard. They must have put it down wrong. Probably should have rolled it. The third township that is on my road three years ago decided to tar and chip their part of the road and it is in excellent condition.

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6 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

I had that other saddle mounted and was putting on my bike shorts when it started storming again.  It’s about seventy degrees, maybe I should take off my heart monitor and go for a ride? If I damage the monitor I will be billed $2,200. I don’t think the dumb thing works anyway but I didn’t damage it. The one township that my road is on just dumped fresh clean gravel so my pretty bike shouldn’t get too dirty. My township didn’t use gravel this year, they used milled blacktop that was removed from a blacktop road that was getting repaved. It’s pretty clean but it’s all washboard. They must have put it down wrong. Probably should have rolled it. The third township that is on my road three years ago decided to tar and chip their part of the road and it is in excellent condition.

You may not even need a saddle. ;)

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6 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

That's a lot wider... 

Glad you solved the problem. 

It’s one I had on hand. Eventually I may switch to another saddle but maybe not. It doesn’t look bad on the bike. I still get breathing hard on hills so I need to increase my miles on basically flat land and get my heart conditioned to that before I do any serious climbing.

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56 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

I still get breathing hard on hills so I need to increase my miles on basically flat land and get my heart conditioned to that before I do any serious climbing.

Yeah.. take your time to build up your conditioning...   Glad you are getting better.

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