40 miles with a friend
 

I've been off the bike for 2 years more or less. I started riding again about 2 weeks ago and have put on maybe 100 miles in 10-15 mile rides. A buddy who rides a bike he's built from picking frames and such from people's garbage (heavy, old 15 speed clunker) wanted to do a 30 mile ride Saturday AM. I figured with me riding this beautiful carbon Trek I'll smoke him even with my lack of conditioning (this is a joke) We met at 7AM at his house and headed out around 7:30. It was a mostly flat ride (300' of climbs) and by 9:30 we were approaching the 15 mile marker and were getting hungry. Dunkin Donuts to the rescue with a coupld of egg/cheese/bacon wraps and a half caf coffee. Recharged, we picked up the pace a bit and were feeling good enough to decide to extend the ride to at least 40 miles. Everything was great until the last 5-6 miles coming back when I got some serious seat pressure pain. I could ride about 5 minutes and then had to stand for a minute or so and repeat. Probably due mainly to my lack of seat time, but I'm thinking of trying one of the creams available that are supposed to help with this.

Anyway...rolled back in his driveway with just 40 miles on the clock and a 3:05 total moving time. I was happy enough with that, but am going to work on getting some more time in the saddle to toughen up for the next ride.

Anyone have a favorite cream or whatever they use to help keep the chafing at a minimum? I've been measured and am using a Specialized BG seat. This ride was also my first using the Falconi deluxe bibshorts which I like a lot.

I did change the seat tilt a little during the ride (went from horizontal to a little upward tip) which helped a little, but I think at that point the damage was done.

Thanks

great job on the riding! I can only offer you what worked for me so take it with a grain (or a cup) of salt! :)

Could be lack of saddle time or it could be bike fit. Could be the saddle. I bought a brooks and also went in for a professional bike fit. That might help!

Again, great job riding!

Thanks...I've been thinking about going in for a fitting, but we don't have any shops here that do the whole shebang. They do saddle, stem, pedals, shoes, etc. Probably enough, but I think I'll try using one of the online tutorials on my own first just for grins.

I've only had (knock wood) the slightest problem with chafing. I think it was caused by my shorts slipping so I ended up not sitting quite on the padded portion.

In any case, I've only used Chamois Butt'r, but it works great!

Can you link to the better tutorial you know of?

to recover from chafing, get rash cream for babies. Works great.

I've found a few...you'll see there are differing opinions on what constitutes a proper fit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAl_5e7bIHk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFQfuGibf0A&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kgpk...feature=fvwrel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrZBj...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNpvA...eature=related

http://www.caree.org/bike101bikefit.htm

Thanks, but I'm not trying to recover. Once I'm off the saddle I feel fine. Pedaling creates the pain or pressure (after 25+ miles or so) I was thinking of trying something like Chamois Butt'r or Assos Cream to avoid the pain to begin with!

I use Aquaphor as my chamois cream. Works as prevention and cures for those times I fail to use it.

Another Aquaphor user here ... I recommend it!