Am I doomed to numbness?
 

I have not been able to find a saddle or riding position that will eliminate or at least reduce numbness during my rides. I consider myself an experienced rider, I know my body and I know how to setup my bikes. But for some reason during the past several years my numbess has increased to a point as to where I'm numb for 75% of a ride. I've got a box full of saddles. Everything from Cutout, split, leather and women's (I'm male) and still nothing works. I've raised it, I've lowered it. Everything I try seems to work for about 1 or 2 rides (maybe a placebo effect) and then I'm back where I started. After about 20 minutes into a ride I get the sensation that it's happening again.

As I stated above, I feel like I should be experienced enough to solve this problem but I'm flummoxed.

One numb rider,
ThakingMyTime

Time to Test Ride a Trike.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4841aea841.jpg

TakingMyTime -could you share some details about your current bike? Maybe post a photo? Are we talking about a road bike with a race type position or more of a touring bike setup?

What about your physical specs? How tall are you, what is your weight, do you have any pre-existing injuries?

I would be especially curious to know which saddle you are currently using, how much setback and it’s height in comparison to the stem as well as your stem length and angle.

Also, how is your belly and upper body strength? Do you offload to your arms periodically by riding in the drops or climbing out of the saddle much?

Are you on a road bike riding at a leisurely pace? The slower you ride the heavier you sit in your saddle. And I'll suppose that some people just aren't built to handle the saddles we use on road bikes. And if you are on a hybrid.... well, I've never been on a hybrid that I've been comfortable on either. Though it's probably because I've never owned one and had to make it fit me. But even just trying them out at the shops they just feel wrong to me.

You might should try out what we use to call a cruiser bike BITD, that has a very slack seat tube angle and a very wide saddle. There are a few still sold, though many today aren't really what we'd have called cruisers back then.

Trek makes a line of them. Look at their Townies and some of the other bikes in their Electra lineup. Or consider a recumbent.

Since you've ruled out position and saddle type, there doesn't seem to be anything else. As suggested, it must be time for a 'bent.:thumb:

Bike fit? Selle SMP? Sqlab? Experimenting with saddle setup?

Sorry, I got quite busy today and don't have the time for a proper response. I will address the questions tomorrow. Thanks!

My numbness issue was solved using a large cutout saddle without a lot of padding. Too much padding can reduce the size of the gap when one sits on it. Either that, or you're getting some pressure from the nose i.e. the front of the cutout. Some blood vessel is getting pinched off somewhere. Has this always been a problem, or is it recent? Have you started doing much longer rides? Some saddles work for 4 hour rides, but fail on an 8 hour.

Some Selle Italia saddles work for me.

I would look at getting a proper dynamic bike fit. You might know your body and that is good but do you know your body while riding a bike and have you been able to make adjustments while you are riding the bike? The great thing with a fitter is they can observe you while riding (something hard to do solo) and make adjustments on the fly on the fit bike and then transfer those measurements to your actual bike.

Raising and lowering a saddle is great and trying different saddles is fine but if the saddle is in the wrong position (fore/aft, tilt, as well as height) or the other things involved with fit are off that can cause issues but also not getting used to the set up can be tough. In the end generally after a good fit you should be pretty comfortable but sometimes you still need to get used to it.

Maybe you sit too much? Try riding soft with your touchpoints. My saddle is much softer when the body is ~1mm elevated. I stand or spin out of saddle regularly throughout the ride.


Maybe the 'bent recommendation is a good one. No shame in a 'bent.

I've found that saddle that's too high or tilted incorrectly can lead to crotchal numbness. I've experienced this after raising the saddle to the specification of a professional bike fitter. Other, less subtle symptoms of a saddle that's too high are bouncing when spinning and rocking the hips or pointing the toes to push through the bottom of the pedal stroke. You might try lowering the saddle just a couple of millimeters.

Probably gonna have to get more upright. Raise and/or bring the bars closer.

Get a bike fit, even if you know a lot about bike fitting a good pro fitter will know a lot more.

Also consider the 3D printed saddles. They give a notch of improvement over other saddles. They also save weight by significantly lightening your wallet..

My wife has a vicious case of carpal tunnel syndrome and getting her bike setup tweaked to alleviate that took some serious work. In the process of sorting that out, I learned a great deal about road bike fit and developed what I feel is a solid a model for how to generate the "weightless" hands condition that many people on this forum recommended to me. Applying this model fixed my wife's issues. I've also had a fair bit of success with it when it comes to fitting myself, my friends, my family, and a few neighbors.

The model minimizes the force experienced by the rider at both the hands and the booty. As such, I feel that it might be of help to you with respect to your numbness. Applying the model requires an interplay of bike fit and deliberate attention to ride posture. I'm not a professional bike fitter by any stretch of the imagination so do keep that in mind. Were you interested in applying this scheme, this is how I would guide you in that:

1) Start with a level seat and only adjust that after the bike fit as needed. Trial and error is tough if you're not starting from something resembling neutral.

2) Critically, try to get your torso to leave the seat vertically prior to curving your back forward. Accomplishing this involves aspects of bike fit, ride posture, and rider conditioning. Some of the important variables:

a) A setup with a reach that facilitates this posture.

b) A setup with fore/aft saddle positioning that allows you to achieve the "weightless hands" force balance shown under dynamic pedaling.

c) Back flexibility that would facilitate this posture.

d) The absence of any back injuries that would prevent you from assuming this posture.

e) Adequate core strength to be able to maintain this posture.

3) Having done the best you can with the above, introduce other tweaks to the setup as seem appropriate given your level of ride comfort.

Everything that I've suggested above is targeted towards minimizing the forces that your contact points experience while riding. Related, but separate, is the issue of road vibration which can also contribute to discomfort. Luckily, vibration problems are much easier to solve than raw force problems. Padding, suspension, bigger / lower pressure tires etc.

I'm a big fan of the Redshift products. I installed one of their vibration dampening stems on my wife's bike and it's worked wonderfully for her. If had had back or saddle problems, I wouldn't hesitate to try one of their suspension seat posts that are meant for gravel bikes. I might get one just for sport the next time that I'm feeling flush with cash since I'm riding a lot of 25 mm tires these days.

Based on my experience with my wife's hands, I'd be very tempted to test out a stiff seat combined with a suspension seat. Padded stuff can cut both ways. It spreads out and reduces pressure everywhere but, at the same time, it can make it difficult to significantly eliminate pressure at targeted locations. https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...633adf24eb.png

That prevents some pressure on the pubic nerve and artery at the expense of putting more pressure on the lower back. Numbness is temporary; back pain is relentless unless treated successfully, and it may take time and money.

My successful treatment includes 1) pivoting forward at my pelvis and keeping my back straight, and 2) getting a saddle that takes pressure off my pubic nerve and artery.

Selle SMP, ISM (ismseat.com), Rido, and perhaps Sqlab and others (Cobb? Ergon?) are sellers who provide firm support for sit-bones and/or pubic rami that removes much of the weight on the relevant body parts. My memory of Selle SMP's patent app is that the saddles are designed so that the nerve and artery should be in the cut out and the other soft bits hang out over the 'eagle's beak of the saddle. ISM's approach is simply to remove the nose; the rider's weight is carried on the 'horns' by the pubic rami, and the soft bits don't touch the seat.. Rido lifts the sitbones so that the relevant body parts aren't heavy on the saddle.

I wouldn't risk my lower back to ride. I suspect I could buy and throw out a lot of saddles before I'd approach the cost (even with Medicare) of MDs/ODs and PTs for an slipped L4/L5 disc episode. And one doesn't have to throw pretty new saddles out - you can usually sell them to others looking for a cure for numbness.

I agree completely which is why I mentioned the need for an injury free back in my recommendation.

Fundamentally, I believe that the posture used by competitive road cyclists must, in fact, be bad for one's back. It sure doesn't look like yoga. I'm curious to hear what others may have to say about this.

When I was dealing with my wife's hand issues, we gave much consideration to the whole "flat back / upright posture" thing as many recommended it and it seemed reasonable. And my wife's a pro at yoga. It didn't work at all. In fact, riding upright with a flat back tended to introduce more force into her hands. That is, in part, a function just how upright one is willing to ride. Obviously, once you're vertical or near to it, you'll not have much force in the hands. Recumbents being the extreme better back health choice perhaps.

When it comes to back health, I feel that mountain bikes / hybrids are probably a better choice.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...06040d1f85.png

I've got a copy of Phil Burt's book Bike Fit which I've found very helpful. The guy below appears in a bunch of photos demonstrating the extremes and the ideal according to Phil. When I'm riding and setting up my bikes, I try to imagine myself taking on the form of the posture on the left. That said, that is obviously not what pro riders look like so I imagine that they are both:

a) Much more flexible and core strong than recreational riders and;

b) Possibly making some back health compromises in the name of kicking ass.

I've only been riding with any seriousness for about three years now. In that time, my preferred effective top tube dimension has gone from about 57 cm to about 61 cm as a result of the changes to my conditioning. It feels as though it comes down to being physically capable of getting a bit "long and low" without having to tilt your pelvis -- or your seat -- too far forward.

My experience with trying to create my own weightless hands scenario has been that these things tend to promote it:

1) Butt further back.

2) Longer and lower so long as my pelvis isn't tilted greatly forward.

3) More pedal force to balance the shift in weight centroid produced by #2.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c6582b911a.png

Bah... I rescind my previous recommendation. After more Googling, I'm back to feeling as though I still don't understand this. More homework required.

I might just have to accept that I'm lucky to be riding discomfort free for the time being and just enjoy that as long as it lasts.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f48c6e8d8b.png

Might I ask your height?

Just lately I've begun moving my saddle forward more than I thought was going to work and it seems to be helping. I had a 20 degree setback post and I'm overcompensating for that and my last ride was much better. My next move is to get a 0 degree post.

Spiderflex noseless saddles or recumbent
 

The numbness you are feeling is probably from pressure on your perineum area. This pressure can lead to a bout of prostatitis. This is from damage done by the nose part of your saddle. Prostatitis starts out with bleeding and pain and is generally not a good thing. The doctor, after checking your bladder for cancer will recommend you stop riding your bicycle because the seat caused this. I started riding noseless saddles after my bout of prostatitis and eventually found the Spiderflex saddle. This saddle has no nose, so no numbness or damage to your internals in that area. It also solves the saddle sore issue with ingenious cutouts where you sitz bones meet the saddle which creates a much larger contact area of skin which lowers the pressure on the skin and I've found that cured my saddle sores. The cutouts for the sitz bones also keep your butt from sliding around on the seat. Other noseless saddles without that feature allow a lot sliding around and it takes a while to get used to it. Spiderflex feels like a nose saddle in how much control you retain over the bicycle when seated. The recumbent is a wonderful solution to this problem and I recommend that also. I believe you have tried enough so called solutions that you know that another nose saddle will cause the same problems as the last however many you have tried. Spiderfles saddles or recumbent bicycle. I have both and I don't have numbness any more with the bonus of no saddle sores also.

^^ I really don't have that problem since my prostate was removed 14 years ago.

So did changing your fit help after all?

My Urologist called it prostatitus because of all the bleeding, pain, and difficulty urinating. This was due to bruising in the perineum area. It really didn't necessarily involve the prostate gland itself. Doctors commonly have a non doctor term for conditions and a technical term for the same condition so I guess that is what this may be. Also they checked my bladder with an endoscope for cancer so the doctor was searching around for causes of the blood. Seeing no cancer he queried me about bicycle riding and more specifically what type of seats I rode. That is when he told me to not ride nosed bicycle saddles again. I'm glad he did because it eventually led to a much better designed seat that can't cause damage to your perineum area and is very comfortable. Only took six decades for me to learn that.

SMP saddle and a new fit with a less aggressive riding position! you are not doomed, you just need to p find the right saddle along with the correct riding position.