https://www.latimes.com/features/heal...ack=crosspromo

The cyclist's tight spot
Caught between a love of riding and a disrupted sex life? The latest bike seats might ease the pressure, but shop around.
By Bill Becher, Special to The Times
April 9, 2007

Very long article.
Highlights a more foward position is more severe.
More than 3 hours a week is bad.
Samll precentage of people get it.
Can be fixed. Although no riding.

Given that my bike won't demand dinner and a movie before hand, I'll stick with riding.

yikes! another time when Kevlar bike shorts might come in handy.

"Small precentage of people get it."

Well, a large percentage of people get ED from cardiovascular disease by not doing things like cycling.

People will avoid bikes as a result of this article, in the same way that people will avoid seatbelts because they might be injured or killed by them.

This is VERY OLD "news," and the problem is generally very easily avoided through proper saddle choice and adjustment. I am 56 years old with 100k mi / 160k km of cumulative cycling experience, and this article doesn't alarm me in the least.

by putting the seats back on.

Sorry. Yeah, it's old news.

The saddest thing about sensational articles like this one is that it might scare people away from riding a bike, which might be one of the best ways to prevent erectile dysfunction (ED.)

Riding a bike is well-known to greatly reduce the risk of diabetes and atherosclerosis, two of the most common causes of ED in our sedentary modern society. The fact is that between 35 and 50 percent of men with diabetes develop ED, compared to about 4 percent of cyclists.

Yet the article spends two full pages discussing bicycle seats, but nothing about diabetes or hardening of the arteries--not to mention kidney disease, chronic alcoholism, multiple sclerosis, vascular disease, and neurologic disease, other well-known causes of ED. The truth is that of those 4 cyclists who get ED, the cause might very likely be something besides the seat. The article cannot say that bicycle seats is the cause of ED in those 4 cyclists, but they let us believe it anyway.

Blaming bike seats for causing ED is like using a magnifying glass to describe an elephant.

But anyone wanting to write a sensational article (or sell a bicycle seat) can claim bicycling caused ED in those 4 out of 100 cyclists, when the truth is, the overwhelming majority of men who develop ED got it for another reason. So if I have ED, and I ride a bike, my doctor might tell me, "stop riding the bike," when the cause is really something else. Doctors often don't want to be sued, so if they don't tell you, "stop riding the bike," they might be afraid of being blamed for not saying it.

Diabetes and atherosclerosis are probably the most common causes of ED. It's interesting that physical exercise is one of the best ways of preventing those diseases. So why should an article focus on bicycle seats, instead of the more obvious benefits of cycling in preventing the major causes of ED?

It would be more accurate to say that not riding a bike might cause ED.

It doesn't mean the end of cycling. Just get a recumbent. Problem solved.

Is this in A & S because the "safety" of you member lies at stake?

no problem here!
basically have given up the Brooks-Professional (years 1980 to 2006, for comfort reasons), but still crank out +/- 5k miles, per year, with-out problem!
'bents could reduce your problem even more, like sbhikes above listed. i have "anatonically corrected" saddles (? nashbar +/-$20.00) on all of my bikes (tour, road, commuter, 'bent) !
ride in comfort, be a driver when required-desired :-) !

This is the crap I hear all the time.

So long as the perinnium is not pinched while riding, all is well.

And you can get low on the bars and still not have issues....that was what the groove was made for...get a saddle with a groove that fits your body...then learn how to position it right, and position yourself upon it properly.

I'm more than willing to bet their study was based on less than ideal rider to saddle interfacing.

As for myself....the spandex protrusion is working as nature intended, and I put down thousands of miles a year....I have no fears about this.

So, how many Erectile Dysfunction due to Bicycling too Much articles does this make? I think it's the TENTH ONE I've read!

I get the picture, ya dumb science people. Really, how much research is needed into this matter?

Now why don't ya go and do something more important, like finding the cure to AIDS?

Edit: Don't take the "dumb science people" comment the wrong way, folks. I'm completing a biology degree myself and I greatly value in scientific research; I'm just knocking people for treading over something so easily and frequently disproven, when they ought to be focusing on something that actually needs attention.

And all of the articles were based on urologist Dr. Irwin Goldstein comments from 1997. The brilliant doctor figured out that 100% of the cyclist refereed to him, had erectile dysfunction.

I wonder what other conclusions Dr. Goldstein would have come to, if he had asked each patient if they regularly drove a motor vehicle. Maybe we would have articles about how car use causes erectile dysfunction.

Funny, people can't seem to see why I prefer to be called "Eddie" rather than "Ed."

Anywho, just be mindful of your body mechanics and you'll be fine. This not only includes things like saddle/butt placement and leg extension on the downstroke, but how your knees track when you pedal (do you tuck them in, flare them out?), how your shoulders are placed, how much weight you put on your wrists, etc.

There are indeed a lot of things to be mindful of, but cycling is still easier on your body than driving, IMHO.

I know when I drive too much and ignore my bike for a few days my psoas goes into spasm, my right knee starts to ache, and my low back gets very tight. When I ride, my muscles get tighter, but that's a safer, healthier tightness.

Wow, I went off on a tangent...but I'm certain y'all get it!

A few things can be done to prevent this problem (which is probably pretty unlikely, but why take chances):

1. Position your saddle so that the nose is angled downward a bit. This apparently reduces the pressure on those blood vessels.

2. If you're riding a hybrid or MTB, raise the handle bars so that you're more upright. Wind resistance doesn't matter if you're just going to the store or if you're slogging through the mud hopping over logs. (Of course, if you're on a road bike and you want to go fast, this isn't an option.)

3. Drink less alcohol.

Well, the beauty of the dropped handlebar is that it could be raised so that the "tops" and "brake hoods" are more upright, but the "drops" will still allow for an aerodynamic position. That's the way it's set up on touring bikes (one of my favorite types of bikes), anyway

I don't see why people would want to set 'em so low that being in the brake hoods requires a crouch down and a stretched out body.

Or, a bike like the RANS Fusion or Zenetic.
-----
I don't know if suffering with it does permanent damage, but I have found cycling is much more enjoyable if my rear end, hands and neck never hurt.
~

Outright speed.

I do that with my road bike, given I do club riding and will eventually be racing...so I need to get used to a layout like that. Handlebars tops are about 2" below the saddle....that's a long ways up from the 4.5" they used to be....I really loved how the bike felt at that height, but I started having issues with my ulnar nerve, so the bars had to go up.

huh?

That would throw the balance of my bike way off... The bars are much lower than the seat for my optimum positioning on my mtn bike. If I made the seat lower, it would pooch the knees!

To each his own. I've been mountain biking for 13 years, and have used a bike for all my transportation for the last year or so, and I've always had the bars at or slightly above the level of the saddle, with no loss of control or problems with the knees.

I had some numbness from riding an hour-long commute. I adjusted the saddle, and never had a problem after that.

I didn't even change saddles; this saddle was a suede-covered saddle, original equipment on an old Motobecane Grand Touring bike, probably at least 20 years old.

I would point out, however, that among competitive athletes, injuries are too often ignored for the sake of competition, no matter which sport you're competing in. Numbness in the groin area does not have to be overlooked, so if you are very competitive and experience numbness, don't just keep training through the problem, get it fixed, it's not rocket science.

Wow, it sure makes sense to reduce my risk of ED by 2 % when I'm 55 by quitting riding.

Assuming of course I don't get fat, and contract diabetes which happens to run in my family. Then I'd be upping my risk factor to about 40 percent.

Look at the populace take ED meds - fat.

Look at the Chinese who ride bikes like crazy and propagate like rabbits - skinny

Draw your own conclusion....

This is worth a laugh:

https://www.irwingoldsteinmd.com/Mriskfactors.html

Thinking again about my post (to which this is a reply) a lot of what determines saddle height vs bar height is frame geometry. I know that on my bike (specialized s-works hardtail) that the bar cannot be raised without a new stem and if I lowered the seat at all, it would be hard on the knees Obviously, not all frames have the same geometry...

sorry for the confusion (on my part)