I'm M, 5'10", 170 lbs. My sit bone distance is around 120 mm; just self measured.

I have Trek Dual Sport 3 Gen 5 (2024) with default saddle. Bontrager H1, Length 275 mm, Width 163 mm. It feels fine. But I don't know any better and have no comparison. Saddle works fine up to around 3-hour ride. After that, I do have physical pain in my sitbone, numbness in perineum, and numbness in my sole of my feet. So at that point, I need to stop and rest after every 20-30 minutes.

I also have a Trek Allant 7.4 (2016) with very similar saddle, which might be original. Bontrager Nebula, Length 268 mm, Width 168 mm. I suspect the cushion is gone, so it is not comfortable after around 1 hour. Looking for replacement saddle.

I read online that some suggest saddle width should be 10-20mm wider than the sitbone.

• I was looking at WTB Volt. Medium width (265mm x 142mm) is supposed the right size for me. In comparison, wide width is 265mm x 150mm. This kind of follow the 20mm wider than sitbone.
• But default Trek saddles are much wider than my sitbone, like 40mm wider.

Why is there such big difference in physical width? Is it because these saddles have different design? Or that default Trek saddle on hybrid bikes are just wide (wider) to fit more people?

I know ultimately, it depends on what feels comfortable. But I need to pick a size to buy and try, before I know if it feels right for me.

Cervelo used to have a report of its research, but they took it down. That's one source of the sit-bone distance + 20 mm. If you lean forward and hinge at the hip, you'll probably have most of your weight resting on the pubic rami, not the sit-bones, though, so I'm not sure sit-bone separation is a great metric. I think pubic rami length is more important, but finding that is pretty expensive.

I really hate perineal numbness, and I wish you the best in preventing it.

I use a Selle SMP TRK, which is a little too soft, but it fits right. Not all Selle SMP saddles work for me. Some are too long between the lowest point of the dip and highest point at the 'beak'. Their pattent application is online - 7,699,391 B2, April 20, 2010.

Many manufacturers make saddles that claim to prevent perineal numbness - ISM, Selle Italia, Rido, Infinity, Bi-Saddle, Selle Anatomica ... I can't think of all of them, but you can start with anything with a slot and go from there. I had no luck with Brooks Imperial and bad luck with ISM, but both have their fans. The TRK was the 3rd approach I tried; it worked so I stopped looking.

I strongly recommend addressing perineal numbness.

Numbness in the perineal area is something you need to solve.

IMO, too much cushion on the top of the saddle along with the cushioning of your chamois will give you numbness on most any saddle.

If your chamois is thick and padded. Then look for bibbs or shorts with a thin chamois. That sometimes will be a more expensive version offered by the various brands.

I prefer a fairly flat profile from nose to rear. Though a little rise in the back is tolerable for me. Some like a lot of rise in the back. And saddles that have cutouts might help too if you insist on keeping a lot of padding in your shorts.

Also if you tilt your saddle up to counteract a tendency to slide forward, then that also contributes to numbness. When your butt slides one way or the other, it's telling you where it wants to be for the current fit you have on your bike. You need to change the other stuff up instead of trying to counteract with saddle tilt.

Ya gotta keep looking and the search goes on, yet we all know all the comfortable saddles were snapped up by the elves at the end of the middle earth era. Oddly things do change. Some of the old saddles I used to use are immensely uncomfortable now days and yet my sit bone dimensions have not changed. Keep looking, you will find a saddle that works for you.

Do note that I am on the cheap end of bicycle components. Its possible that if I had spent more money on my saddles I might have had better luck. Then again, I have ridden with some that have spent enormous amounts of money of theirs and yet they were still uncomfortable.

A few months ago I put together an ole fat tire bike for a guy. We purchased a 23 USD Saddle off the zon and damn, its comfortable! Ha, dont know how long it will last but for now he is pretty satisfied. That's the way it goes...

Amazon: OUXI Comfort Bike Seat 23 USD

Cyclists don't sit on the "sit bones" (ischial tuberosities), but on the much narrower ischial ramus.

The outer width of a saddle has no real connection to how wide the flat portion you sit on is.


Imagine measuring your ankles, then using that measurement to buy shoes that are sized by the width of the outer sole rather than the last. That's how little sense sense picking saddles by sit bone and outer saddle width makes.

To me, shape is far more important than any measurement. (Granted, my journey with saddles started long before anybody talked about sit bones.) I recommend sitting on saddles. I see you are in the Bay Area. Lot's of good bike shops. Call around and find out who has saddles for trial before final sale or a good return policy. Try them. Many shops can put your bike on a trainer so it is a simple matter of putting on seats and riding your bike with that seat. That will quickly rule out seat that simply aren't right. Many will then allow you to buy t hat one that feels best and ride it for a while, then bring it back for exchange for another if a few miles tells you it isn't the "one".

When you get the seat, first get the seat height correct (with the help of a fitter or duplicating your knee bend on your previous setup. Then go riding and bring all the wrenches for your saddle and seat pin. Adjust as necessary. Keep the changes small and measure them if at all possible. (I love 2-bolt seatposts that allow very small and completely reproducible changes.)

A former bike shop in Portland (probably a COVID casualty) had a "seat library" of about 25 seats. $25 got you a "library" card. You could take out any seat for a week. Many as you like. Find the one that works, buy a new, boxed one and get your $25 applied to the purchase. It was a great concept and execution. I doubt it had anything to do with the shop's closing (other than far too few butts coming in for seats over the pandemic).

I agree that the chamois can be a source of pressure. I think that it’s a great idea to have cutouts in the saddle to prevent pressure, but if the chamois is too thick, all of that cutout engineering is wasted.

I do like some padding directly under my sit bones though, so I took a pair of cycling shorts and cutout all of the padding in the perineal area. Now I have padding where I need it and none where I don’t.

This is really common. Your current saddle looks like it should be about as good as it gets. What you need to do is to come out of the saddle for about one minute, every 15 minutes. If after 3 hours that feels really hard to do, you have to increase your legs' endurance, maybe weight work in the gym. I agree with all the above comments.

Thanks for feedback. I figure the best way is to test and try out saddles in person.

I borrowed an old Specialized saddle (Avatar 143) from my brother. It is around 143mm wide. I'm not sure if this is considered medium or soft. Feels a bit soft, but it is an old saddle. I tried it for 5 minutes yesterday; and will use it to commute to work tomorrow for the real test.

And I will borrow a saddle from colleague to test out.

Hopefully these trials will give me some direction on which saddle to get.

Based on YouTube and online research, I am leaning toward these. But a lot of details to decide on:

• Saddle Width: Medium (around 142mm) or narrow (135mm)
• Firmness: medium (like WTB Volt) or firm (like WTB Silverado). Ergon is also another brand I'm looking at. But Ergon doesn't specify the firmness.

The outer width of the saddle is predictive only if all saddles transition from top to side in the same manner. But some saddles transition quickly, so they have effectively wider tops.

Softness is only of value if it is where you actually want to put pressure on your body. And then if that area is too soft you will sink and put pressure elsewhere.


So I disagree with your protocol.

I almost choked on my coffee reading this post this AM.

My mind picked up on the OUXI brand name but I couldn't get passed reading that as OUCHIE... odd branding for something touted as 'comfortable'.

Yep... I get it! Its been over 6 months use and its still serviceable. I have no idea how long its going to last or hold up. I told the guy to order another one before they quit making them or they get lost to the marketing scuffle. For our records lets just cal it a cheap arse "Ouchie Saddle". Still, not everyone can afford a Brooks. Especially on a rat bike. Then again that Selle Italia Sport Gel Flow is going for about 50 bucks! thats a good deal...

The numbness in the perineum might indicate that your saddle is just too high. Try lowering it 2-3 mm.

In Portland, I think that might have been River City Cycles? On a short visit I was very tempted to join the Library, but I wasn’t goin to be in town long enough and I had not brought “togs.”

Three hours in the saddle is a long time. If the o.p. saddle can pull that off I'm wondering seriously if that isn't about as good as it gets. Maybe start taking butt breaks before the 3 hour mark. Simply unweighting the saddle for a few crank revolutions every 15 to 30 minutes is something. I see no mention of padded shorts! No one can do those kinds of miles without a good quality chamois. I'm 5'10" as well but I haven't seen 170 since around 1977. I once self measured at around 100mm. The SMP TRK is just too dam wide. I've got two that are free to a good home: the standard (165?) and ultra-wide for the missus (180?).

The width at the sitbones is not the issue. The width much further forward from the sit area has to be very narrow for me. A number of e-bikes are hitting the market with really nice saddles that are super wide and flat at the sit area but narrow rapidly to a narrow point. The newly re-introduced Mongoose Envoy cargo bike has a supremely comfortable example of this kind of saddle. I contacted the parent company of Mongoose to see if I could get some to stash, but there were none as the Envoy had been discontinued. I intend to ask again as I see the Envoy is back in production.

For a more racing oriented saddle, the Bontrager Affinity is very nice. Flat front to tail, but also side to side with a slight groove just like the H1. I've been finding them used and new old stock on Ebay. A lot of good saddles you thought were gone forever can be picked up for cheap on ebay.

OP here. Follow-up.

Luckily, I was able to find the right saddle: WTB Gravelier. I cannot say it is the best or most optimal one, because I only tried 9 saddles. But at least I was able to find one that works for me. I bought 2 of these. One for gravel and one for hybrid.

As with all things on the internet, need to take all advice with a grain of salt. Some advice helpful, but some are completely off and not applicable in my case. Just because it works for 1 person (you), doesn't mean it applies to everyone. On the other hand, if there is bike fitter here who has worked with hundreds of people, then that advice might be more credible. So bottom line is that we need to test out saddles in person.

Some things that I found that worked for me:

• First level for comfort, I must have cut off to address my perineum (perineal) pressure, perineum numbness, and penis numbness.
• Second level for comfort, saddle widths have huge impact.
  • Sitbone width measurement is quite useful to get the right size, so manufacturer suggested size based on sitbone width is right on for sizing. Of course that does not necessarily mean the right saddle in comfort. But need to start there.
  • I sit on carboard box and measure my sit bone (ischial tuberosity) to be 125mm. Then I also used aluminum foil on saddle. I can see indentation of my ischial tuberosity to be 120-125mm, and ischial ramus to be around 115mm. Among the saddles I looked at, saddle widths are basically narrow (135), medium (145), and wide (160). Manufacturer suggest medium size for my sit bone width.
  • On the wide saddles, I can see that my ischial tuberosity is too far forward (near area where saddle start to widen); there is no support for my ischial ramus (can barely see the indentation on aluminum foil); and a lot of pressure in the perineum, even with cut out.
  • I also tried 1 narrow saddle (130mm wide). That was really stupid that I changed my saddle at work using saddle borrowed from coworker. I had to ride 1.5-hour home. It was extreme torture. I don't even know why or how, as I couldn't even analyze the situation. There was so much pain in the soft tissue around my ischial ramus.
• Third level for comfort is shape at the top of saddle and near cut-out. Once the pressure on perineum is removed, then this top saddle shape determines how remaining pressure is spread out.
• The side shape, flare, and curvature do not affect me much. WTB Gravelier has wider mid-section and gradual taper to the widest part. I also tested old Specialized road saddle narrow mid-section and sharp flare to the widest part. They both work well and feel very similar.
• Pinching can be a real issue. I tried Specialized saddle with a lot of stitching around the cut out and around gel pads. Even though the saddle shape is comfortable, it pinched really bad.