Having already spoken about womens-specific bib shorts and, in more detail, about those with ‘easy access’ for comfort breaks in previous blog pieces, looking at the right saddle choice for female cyclists makes the third part to our advice series on how to achieve uncompromised comfort – down below - for longer rides.
by Fiona Outdoors
There was a time when I thought that bike seats needed to look good, rather than feel good. These days, I look for a seat that brings comfort and joy instead. Looks really don’t count that much.
When I bought my first racer bike I reckoned the perfect seat was hard, narrow and sleek. It looked so right and perfect on my shiny new racing machine.
I had been told that like a good pair of walking boots, a bike seat would take a while to bed in and feel comfortable and so I persevered. But the rubs and pain that I suffered in my nether regions during hundreds of miles of cycling are not something I wish to talk further about.
Suffice to say a week’s holiday riding the famous cols of the Pyrenees was spoiled only by the agony down below.
I also tried to remedy the situation with ever-more padded cycle shorts. I looked for shorts that had the thickest, plumpest chamois. I bought pots of chamois cream (more about that first chamois cream fail in another blog!) and thought that if I gritted my teeth hard enough I would feel less pain in those sensitive areas.
In the end, the solution came from a more experienced – and far wiser – cycling pal who told me the secret to joy in the saddle is the right bike seat. She recommended a “saddle with a hole in the middle”.
At first I scoffed. Those seats look ridiculous, I thought. And they do not fit with the aero-dynamics of my bike. But after a year of suffering I decided to take my friend’s advice.
Night and day: A good bike seat
The new bike seat provided one of my best eureka moments in my life as a cyclist. The saddle was women-specific, it was wider and more padded than the “bike seat of torture” and boasted a long hole down the centre.
It felt incredibly comfortable when riding and it almost didn’t matter what shorts I wore, the same big smile was spread across my face.
The width of the seat made sense anatomically. Women, on average, have wider hips and sitting bones. The wider rear area of the women’s bike seat offered support in the right places.
I worried I’d end up with a dull ache in my butt bones but this didn’t happen. When sitting on a bike seat you tend to lean forward. This, combined with the gel padding on the wider seat, my ample bottom fat and the padded shorts, gave comfort rather than pain.
And when leaning forward in the seat, the hole is perfectly positioned to relieve any front area pressure issues that I had previously experienced. Again, I had worried that there might be some pain where other front areas rested on the seat but there wasn’t – the clever people who make bike seats for women have clearly put a lot of thought into the design!
Since then I have always bought women’s bike seats. While I am certainly not indicating that this design is right for all women and all cycle disciplines – at the end of the day, preferences and needs are very individual - today I personally always look for those saddles which feature a hole in the middle (or a cut-away section at the front of the seat) and a wider, softer seat rear.
I don’t buy the seat too wide because too much bike saddle surface area can eventually have the opposite effect of increasing aches and pains. It’s a balancing act choosing the right saddle but once you find one, you’ll know.
My mountain bike boasts a luxury level of padding and is a little wider because I sit in a different position and do less mileage.
Meanwhile, the seats on my racer and cyclo-cross bikes are more racing style yet never could they ever again be described as hard and sleek.
There are also men’s bike saddles with cut outs, which act in a similar way to offer a relief from sores and rubs in all the right places. Some of my male cycling friends swear by them but far less than the number of women who tell me that, thanks to my advice, they too have found comfort and joy in the perfect women’s bike saddle.
Fiona Outdoors is a keen road cyclist and mountain biker. She has taken part in triathlons, time trials, sportives and audax. She has cycled extensively in Scotland, England and on the Continent. See her blog here.