Road Cycling - sore down under

One week ago was my first century. I came home with a memorable souvenir of some nice irritation in the groin area from my seat. It was a pretty wet ride, so I think that contributed.

Anyways, in the past week, it has diminished, but started to get irritated on the two 2 hour rides I did this weekend. Since I'm planning another century in 7 days, I'm concerned about getting healed, since if it's not I'd expect that 6 hours in the saddle could be pretty uncomfortable.

I wonder if anyone has advice on helping you heal down under? Any advice here?

Also, during the last 15 miles of my century, I started to get a pretty bad case of hotfoot on the sole of my foot right above my cleats. If anyone has any suggestions on that I'd appreciate as well.

Thanks!
Joe

Saddle type and postition can affect groin pain. I had problems, I use a serfass Rx saddle, this has fixed all problems. You may try tilting nose of seat down, this may help some also.

Get some ?seat butter? or that stuff to prevent diaper rash on babies' butts at Wal-Mart...

Are you talking about a saddle sore (little red demon that makes life hell) or general pain in your ass? If it's the former, there have been some very informative threads about them on here before and theyr'e easy to find if you search for "saddle sore". If it's the latter, there are a lot of variables. How long have you had the bike? How long have you been doing rides of 3+ hours? Is your saddle set up in the right position for you? For me, it takes a month or so before my butt's ready for long journeys in the saddle. After that, I'm used to it and all's well. Some kind of a chamois cream will help saddle sores, by the by, as will making sure that your saddle is at the right height, etc.

An update on my original post: before going out to ride today, I planned to try that trick I've read about where you turn the saddle a few degrees. When I went to adjust it, lo and behold, I realized my saddle already was off by a few degrees, and of course it was pointing towards my right side where I'd been chafing. I adjusted it back to center, and voila, no problems with chafing on the ride.

So the moral is: check the saddle position first.