When I ride, I slide forward on the saddle. I start by perching my sit bones on the wide area of the saddle (old style Fizik Aliante) and rolling forward onto my pubic rami(?) to reach the handlebars. As I ride, I pretty quickly slide forward to a point where I feel as if I’m riding on the saddle’s nose, which leads to perineal numbness. I push myself back, and the cycle starts again.

This occurs with an Avocet Touring I, a Specialized Toupe, and the Aliante. I rode the Avocet without any problems for years, but when I got back to cycling last year after a 10 year layoff, I started to have this problem.

My saddle height seems good – no knee pain, slight bend in the knee with heel on the pedal at 6 o’clock.

My handlebars obscure the front hub when I’m on the drops. The stem, which is both long and deep, is about 2 cm higher than my saddle. I used to ride the drops and the hoods, but now I ride the bend in the bars. I turned 70 six weeks ago, so I don’t expect to get back to the drops much in the future.

Since this happens with 3 very different saddles, I suspect it’s my setup.

My first thought was that my saddle was too far back, but I feel like I slide forward earlier if I place the saddle in a more forward position. I wonder if my stem is too long or too high, but it’s not easy to experiment with a shorter stem. Also, the stem has been in so long that I can’t loosen it to lower it.

Any thoughts on what to change first?

Thanks.

Try tipping the saddle nose up slightly.

You're 70, and got back to cycling after a ten year layoff. Are you riding the same setup you had back in the day? If so, I suspect that you've lost (maybe temporarily) a bit of flexibility in your lower back and are struggling to manage the reach that used to be oK for you. So you'll tend to sit slightly more upright and since your hands can't come back, your backside slides forward.

That's just a guess. But if it's right you might try a shorter stem and see if that helps. A bike shop might help with loosening the existing stem for you.

The fact that your preferred hand position is now higher and farther back than it used to be says that you're riding with a more open hip angle, so you probably need to nose-up the saddle slightly to compensate. Don't go crazy -- bump it up by only half a degree and then ride for a week. Repeat until either the problem goes away, or you start experiencing too much perineal pressure.

All I can say is, 'THANKS!' Obviously, I completely forgot about the ability to change the angle of the saddle, and there's no saying if or when I'd have remembered without your suggestions.

I just got back from my first ride after tipping the saddle nose up a little bit, and my butt pretty much stayed where I put it. 2ndary effects include: 1) I stretched out more; 2) did some riding on the hoods; and 3) felt more stable throughout the whole ride, even though the 2nd half of it was into the teeth of an 11 mph wind.

Lots of changes to setup over the past year, especially in the saddle area. I weigh a lot more than I used to, and I'm a wee bit shorter.

When I got into road biking a few years ago I got a Brooks B17 saddle. At first I kept sliding down on the saddle. Then I tilted the saddle up a little too much and it kinda hurt down there ( if you know what I mean). I just kept changing the tilt of the saddle until I just stopped sliding down on it. The new Brooks B17 is kinda slippery and shiny so it's easy to slide down on it. I do like the Brooks very much on my road bikes. But they take some break-in time. For bikes ridden with more upright torso posture, like hybrids, I use wider softer saddles.

Sometimes lowering the saddle a bit can help.