Stucky

OHhhhh! So THAT'S what "PB" stands for! (The "P" is for 'popped'.....)

uprightbent

Precisely my point. We simply don't know if we're hurting ourselves since a compressed penile artery won't provide warning. The tingling is from nerves. Not looking for absolutes here, just wanted people's opinions on how they felt about (not) knowing. Seems most don't need much more assurance. As I mentioned in my original post, most of us have evaluated ourselves, and wouldn't bother with pressure mapping or the oxy measurements shown on YouTube by Specialized. Love vintage steel and Brooks, logged many safe miles, maybe the bent is where I belong.

uprightbent

I mentioned this in the original post. Was curious how many thought, or were even concerned about 80% blood loss while not standing on the pedals. Who's gonna ride out of the saddle all day. This is the temporary or non scientific remedy I was hoping to get beyond. The truth is many of us are so addicted to cycling, we'd risk damage nonetheless.

cruiserhead

Sitting in a chair for extended periods of time will cause all kinds of health problems.
Running will cause joint damage.
Football, Soccer and Rugby will cause brain damage, neck compression, and a myriad of permanent physical injuries.
Sitting on a couch will kill you.
Cooking in a kitchen will damage your hands, skin and feet.
Working at a computer will cause permanent tunnel carpal, neck, shoulder and back pain.
Pregnancy will jack up a woman's body for 9 months and then some and permanently alter their physical makeup.

Living sure sucks.
If your gonads can't handle one of the hundreds of bike seats out there, go sit in a recumbent.
Who cares what other people are doing. Their bodies have nothing to do with yours.
If you can't feel your badong, you need to do something about it.

slimyfrog

This is always very true and comes up periodically when people bring up fear of injuries.
However, maybe OP has a point. This thread is making me wonder if maybe I do in fact take my 'badong' for granted. If I had to make a list of all the body parts I worry about injuring while cycling, Mr Froggy isn't ranking very high. I mean... I have no complaints. He's done a fine job over the years, but you can still have a lot of fun (and sex) without a functioning peepee, but you can't do any cycling at all with a busted knee...

habilis

Is the problem temporary numbness while riding, long-term numbness (even days after riding), or long-term ED? Three different - and possibly unrelated - scenarios.

I don't have a saddle with a central valley, but the design should eliminate perineal pressure. If not, the only remaining source of pressure would be a garment, right? With or without the valley, a too-narrow saddle can cause central pressure rather than on the sit-bones, where it belongs. I'd analyze these variables before giving up on upright bikes. I might also find a urologist who is also an experienced cyclist.

As already noted in this thread, every male experiences some reduction of potency AND libido as a normal consequence of aging. The impulse to find an external cause is part of our male pride. In the movie Dr. Strangelove, an Air Force general blew up the world because he believed water fluoridation was a communist plot to rob American men of their potency. The inspiration for this delusion was his own experience with ED. If he had had access to Viagra, the world might have been saved.

metalheart44

If you do a search using Google Scholar (Cycling and Erectile Dysfunction) there are a number of hits, some providing useful information. It appears there is a good body of literature about the topic and you may have to wade through it to find a comprehensive overview, but the work is there. Here are just a couple of abstracts to show some examples.........

[h=1]ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION AFTER A LONG-DISTANCE CYCLING EVENT: ASSOCIATIONS WITH BICYCLE CHARACTERISTICS[/h][h=3]Purpose:[/h]We conducted a prospective cohort study to examine the relationship between bicycle characteristics and the occurrence of erectile dysfunction.
[h=3]Materials and Methods:[/h]Subjects consisted of 463 cyclists completing a cycling event of at least 320 km who were free of erectile dysfunction before their event.
[h=3]Results:[/h]The cumulative incidence of erectile dysfunction after the ride was 4.2% (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.4%–6.8%) and 1.8% (95% CI 0.7%–3.8%) 1 week and 1 month after the event, respectively. Bicycle characteristics associated with an increased risk of erectile dysfunction included a mountain bicycle compared with a road bicycle (risk ratio [RR] 4.1, 95% CI 1.6–12.5), and the relative height of the handlebars parallel with or higher than the saddle compared with the relative handlebar height lower than the saddle (RR 3.0, 95% CI 1.1–9.3). Perineal numbness during the ride was experienced by 31% of the cyclists and was associated with erectile dysfunction (RR 4.4, 95% CI 1.6–12.7). Saddle cutouts were associated with an increased risk of erectile dysfunction among those who experienced numbness (RR 6.0, 95% CI 1.3–27.1), but the association was reversed among those who did not report numbness (RR 0.3, 95% CI 0.0–2.5).
[h=3]Conclusions:[/h]If the associations described are causal, then cyclists on a long-distance ride may be able to decrease the risk of erectile dysfunction by riding a road bicycle instead of a mountain bicycle, keeping handlebar height lower than saddle height and using a saddle without a cutout if perineal numbness is experie

And, then there is this article that suggests cycling may be helpful preventing ED:


Does bicycling contribute to the risk of erectile dysfunction? Resultsfrom the Massachusetts Male Aging Study (MMAS)



Because the logistic regression model includedenergy expenditure, it does not merely suggest thatmoderate cycling, when added to little or noexercise, has a beneficial effect on ED. It impliesthat substituting bicycling for another activity mayprotect against ED. We have reported previously thatphysical activity, known to have an inverse relationwith heart disease,24,25 is also associated with theprobability of developing ED.26 In the MMAS, thehighest risk for ED was in men who remainedsedentary, and the lowest levels of ED were in menwho began exercising or continued exercisingbetween baseline and follow-up.26 Our analyseslooking at cycling further support this finding. Evenwhen controlling for a variety of factors, moderatecycling is not associated with moderate or completeED in the MMAS. In fact, we found that moderatecyclists are less likely to have ED than those who donot cycle (although the 95% CI includes 1) and sportcyclists are more likely to have ED (although the CIis very broad).







Impotence and genital numbness in cyclists.

Cyclists often complain of genital numbness and even of impotence. The purpose of this study was to determine if perineal compression during cycling causes changes in the penile blood supply, impotence and penile numbness. Forty healthy athletic men with a mean age of 30 +/- 5.3 years took part in the study. Transcutaneous penile oxygen pressure was obtained using a device consisting of a modified Clark pO2 electrode, attached to the glans of the penis. All men were measured in a standing position before, in a seated and standing position during and in a standing position after cycling. Additionally, a detailed interview was carried out with each man. The penile blood supply--which correlates with the transcutaneous PO2 at the glans-- decreased significantly in over 70% of the test subjects during cycling in a seated position. Cycling in a standing position did not show any alteration in the penile blood supply as compared to the values measured before exercising. Numbness of the genital region was reported by 61% of the cyclists. 19% of cyclists who had a weekly training distance of more than 400 km complained of erectile dysfunction. The results of the present study showed that there is a deficiency in penile perfusion due to perineal arterial compression. This could be a reason for penile numbness and impotence in long-distance cyclists. Therefore, we suggest restricting the training distance, and taking sufficient pauses during the course of prolonged and vigorous bicycle riding, in order to avoid penile numbness and impotence.

fietsbob

A New York Times piece helped sell the Local Shop's noseless saddle .. to a reader of an article on that topic ...

Cause: Reading .. effect.. bought stuff.

@ 68, my Hormones are in Remission

zonatandem

Age 83; over 300,000 miles of bicycling since the 1970s.
Pedaled 4,500 miles in 2015.

I'm fine!
So what's the problem?

cruiserhead

Exactly
The internet causes a lot of mental dysfunction.
Too much reading on the internet makes some people believe they have done actual work, actual research, found "the truth" or exposed something new.

In fact, all most have done is digested a lot of opinion and garbage. Usually all condensed into forums like this.

Clipped_in

Kudos to you sir! Wishing you many happy and potent miles ahead.

oldgrowth45

And not to sound weird, but looking great for your age. Keep on riding!

To the OP, I would turn the question back to you. Is the reason for the post due to personal problems you're experiencing? I think plenty have commented that ED has many causes, and sometimes it's a combination of several things: diet, stress, etc.
My own personal experience, I've spent large amounts of time on a variety of bikes since I was seven up to the present - at one point I even earned a living on my bike (was a bike messenger for three years back in the late '80's). I have a healthy family and an enjoyable sex life. Sure, there's times after a real long ride when I'll feel a little numb down there, but I've never noticed anything serious. I'm of the belief that a lot of what's going on with your little head is directly related to your big head, so I don't really worry too much about bike seats and ED. The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and cope with a tremendous range of stressors and thrive. Use it or loose it.

Road Fan

Specialized saddles are part of a product line Specialized calls "Body Geometry."

RobbieTunes

ED and saddles.

There's a cure for that.

Marriage.

Booger1

What's ED?.....Is 50 years and hundreds of thousands of miles riding enough to get it?.....

If you ride long distance and things are tingling and going to sleep,somethings really wrong with your bike setup.Otherwise you could get ED just from sitting period.

If your saddle isn't wide enough for your hiney for example,saddles too high,saddles too rounded on top,not enough back tilt......I could see all kinds of problems that could arise....or not arise......

ColaJacket

I don't lean forward on a small triangular piece of plastic when I'm normally sitting.

Changed seat to get a cutout without changing anything else significantly in the setup, and this got rid of the problem.

GH

andr0id

I hate it when on a long ride, you have to stop at a light and blood err... pools in your extremities, shall we say. Then you have to ride a couple of miles to redistribute that blood into the rest of the circulatory system.

I get very light headed due to several quarts being diverted.



These studies rarely elaborate on which kind of saddle are being used or the general fitness of the riders in question. My personal opinion is that too much padding on either the saddle or on the rider is probably the major cause of excess compression of the artery.

A fit rider with a narrow saddle that promotes sitting on the iliac tuberosities is likely the solution to this problem.

Seattle Forrest

That's true of most of life. Are fats healthy or bad for you? What about eggs? Is it safer to have a gun in the house or will that get you shot one night? Raise your kids in the city or the country? At some point, you've got to decide what makes the most sense to you and take your chances.

Stucky

But think of the aero benefit- having a protruding spar with which to break the wind. (At other times, the only wind-breaking that occurs is from the rear.)

Ratzinger

Maybe it's a black hole of facts just because there isn't a huge risk to genital health. Some people do experience problems, and you cited a couple examples, but it's nothing compared to the risk of getting hit by a car, for example.

The seemingly very low risk of E.D. plus the benefits of exercise (general health=penis health as well) make me not worried about cycling when it comes to genitals.

SpeshulEd 

One could argue a mistress or divorce is a better cure...

Booger1

When leaning forwards on your triangle,your sit bones should still be riding on the saddle,not soft tissue,arteries and the like.

PaulRivers

I've actually fixed this issue for myself.

For non-biking reasons, I started doing Pilates, then I hired a physical therapist for 3 one-on-one sessions. My work has free Yoga so I've been doing that as well.

Some of the core muscles just didn't activate for me before the one-on-one stuff. It wasn't as much a matter of them being weak, it was more a matter of them not turning on at all. Physical therapy helped with that, pilates helped strengthen them once they were moving.

I've been riding the same winter bike I was riding last year when I'd get "numbness", it's been 100% no problem this year. It's been great. I went back to flat shoes and pedals, no more numbness downstairs when riding, I definitely look forward to riding more than I did last year. Now if spring would just hurry up and get here... :-)

fietsbob

Science requires research grants and having a Biomechanics Lab at your disposal .. who wants to Fund It?