Time for a different saddle?
 

I am 2 rides into this season and I am not sure I can get back on my bike. This is starting my 3rd year of riding and I have never had this kind of pain before. I've always liked the Avenir plush saddle that came with my Raleigh hybrid and never thought about replacing it. I know a lot of people say that a thinner or less padded saddle feels better, but I never had any problem with mine. Until this year. I haven't done anything different or ridden anywhere other than where I rode last year. I haven't gained or lost any significant amount of weight either.

On my first ride last Wednesday I started having pain in my inner thigh muscles when pedalling and a lot of pressure on my sit bones. I thought maybe it was just because I hadn't ridden in several months. I did raise the seatpost about an inch and a half and it seems to have alleviated the muscle pain.

I was pretty sore over the next couple of days and didn't try to ride until this morning. Same thing, about a 1/4 way into my ride and I was having seat pain again. These are short rides, too. Wednesday was just under 6 miles and today I stopped at about 3.5 miles.

I guess I'll start shopping for a new saddle, unless someone has any other ideas. It does have a suspension seatpost, but I'm not sure if that would cause the pain or not.

Have you been fitted by a bike shop? It's worth the money. I kept having issues with pain and sores on my inner left thigh area...in the perenium area...turned out my left leg is a bit longer than my right. Turning my saddle solved all the pain as simple as that. Worth a shot.

Two things about the early season:

- Yes, getting back on the saddle is supposed to hurt. Your last memory on the bike was doing X number of miles with ease. Guess what; it will take you a few weeks to do X number of miles with ease, and if you try to get anywhere near X, you will hurt yourself.

- This is the perfect time to readjust your bike. Our bodies are very good at adapting, including adapting to a sub par bike setup. Take the opportunity to figure out how to make your bike more comfortable now before your body gets used to it. You may think "well, if I just get used to it then that's that", but later on as you add the miles those less-than-ideal bits can come back to haunt you.

Take it easy, and build up your mileage again slowly.

Do the adjustments like your doing and give yourself time to adjust. Raising the seat post almost 2 inches is a bit concerning though. Have you grown? Has your seat post slipped when it wasn't being ridden?

Expect some time before you become accustomed to riding again. Or better yet, don't stop :thumb:.

Thanks for the replies. I forgot to say that after I raised the seat, it was really higher than I wanted and lowered it back about an inch. I feel foolish admitting this next part, but I had my tires set at 70 psi. I was checking them before today's ride, and saw that the max is 85.

I don't know why I was thinking they were supposed to be at 70, but I inflated them to 85 and rode 6 miles. Guess what? Very little pain. I don't know if the low pressure was the cause or not but I had an enjoyable ride and actually increased my avg. speed from last week's ride. I also adjusted the knobs on the forks to try to firm up the ride. I don't have a manual for them and can't find anything on the internet about adjustments, so I'm just winging it. Between the two adjustments though, I liked the way it rode.

my guess is that it was the height change, but whatever, as long as it's fixed and you're riding again.