Hello,

I took up cycling around 10 weeks ago, I bought a BMC Road machine and a cheap ass pair of bib shorts.

At least 1-2 times a day i was cycling a 4km round trip to my job without wearing bib shorts.

Due to already being fit i started off with a few 20km rides and then got invited by a cyclist friend (about 2 weeks in) to go a run to surrey so i jumped in and done 100km ride, then during the week days i was doing multiple 50+k rides (with the cheapo shorts). during one of the shorter rides i got a little pain in my groin and thought it was a strain so paid little attention. After the first 100k ride i started to get substantial pain in my groin and testicles. but kept going thinking it was teething pains! fast track to now ive been off the bike for around 4 weeks. I saw a specialist Urologist who ran the works on me with all the tests and i have prostatitis. Didnt occur to me that at the start of all this i had a UTI which was probaly the starter for it all or the specialist thinks it could also just be the extreme pressure for long periods of time i put on the prostate gland and given i have never cycled before it was just to much too soon for that sensitive area to be used as a cushion.

I also never got the bike fit done that might have led to a better position and avoided it to an extent,

I wanting to see if anyone else has caused themself similar issue and were able to get back into it again? I really really dont want to give it up as it has to be the most enjoyable form of exercise ive done.

So far im 6 weeks into treatment on antibiotics and the pain has been reduced to some short intervals every few days. Ive bought some Rapha classic bib short which where recommended for comfort, and i have bought a selle italia saddle with the cut out.

Any advice will be warmly appreciated!

For me it was just time, that was the cure. I tried the Spongy Wonder noseless saddle but it didn't work for me at all. I suspect that all the movement in that area still caused discomfort. Mine unfortunately took over a year to heal but lets just hope that I was an outlier. Even though you might not be over 50, the forum for 50+ has plenty of info on men who have experienced the same problems you are describing. You might want to check it out.

This year it started to flare up again but I did change over to my Specialized Avatar Gel with cutout and put it on all three of my bikes and it seems to be better this year. Good luck.

Be sure your Selle Italia saddle has a generous cutout for perineum relief. The earlier Selle Italias, like the Q-Bik, combined a small cutout with extra padding -- didn't really accomplish anything. The later Selle Italia SuperFlow models had a larger cutout. Ditto several other models with larger cutouts.

There are also noseless saddles from ISM and others, popular with time trialists and triathletes.

One of the more extreme saddles I've seen is the MoonSaddle. The cyclist said she really likes it, confirmed by the apparent wear on the saddle. I suspect it would require a little practice to adapt to that type of saddle, but it's worth considering.

Also, shorts padding that is too thick may defeat the purpose of the cutout saddle. I match my shorts to the saddle of the bike I plan to ride that day. One of my Selle Italia saddles has very little padding and no cutout or relief channel. It's most comfortable with the thickest, densest most resilient padded shorts and bibs I have. My Selle Italia Q-Bik is better with thinner padding -- excess padding fills the gap of the small cutout, while the saddle padding compresses -- the combination actually adds pressure rather than relieving pressure.

For my hybrid, I just got a Bontrager saddle with a generous cutout and a little more padding than I'd usually choose for a road bike. It's been comfortable on rides up to 20 miles wearing ordinary underwear and baggy shorts. Haven't tried it yet on a road bike with padded shorts.