Saddle soreness help
 

Update; All is good now! Thank you guys so much for the advice! I have another century Saturday and definitely got some good info from here!


Hi! Good morning. I did a Century yesterday, and I was great until the last 2 hours when it was getting dark and my lights died 🤦🏽‍♀️ So I was cycling as fast as I could. It was then I started to get sore in the seat. Today it’s like two golf balls under there 🥴 I tried to google what might help and it was only tips to make my seat more comfortable, well, a little late for that lol. Might anyone have a suggestion! Or do I just have to play it out. Thank you!

Good saddle
Good shorts/bib shorts...flat seam padding
Liberal use of Chamois creme
Time on bike...how long is your usual ride?...how often do you ride a century?
Good fit on bike
Change position more frequently

Dealing with a saddle sore:
Use a product such as "Boil Ease" to reduce swelling
Use of a soothing product after the ride/before bed/etc. to soothe such as A&D Ointment, Noxzema, etc.

Minor abrasion and chafing are not saddle sores. It may lead to saddle sores though. Wash up with plenty of hot soapy water to avoid infection & go easy for a few days.

Not stated is the shorts/saddle situation. You're not wearing tightly-whites, are you? Is this the "right" saddle for you? How is the bike fit? How much weight is on your sit bones? Is your backside toughened up yet?

Just asking questions. If you haven't ridden in a while sometimes you've gotta ease back into it.

Congrats on the Century, BTW.

Do you have actual swelling or is it just sore to the touch? Is the skin abraded? Different answers depending on the details of your condition.But for general saddle comfort and adjustment: there are 7 factors in preventing saddle numbness and pain:

1) saddle adjustment - tilt angle is very important and very small changes are noticeable

2) sitting properly - a lot of people ride too far forward on the saddle. Your "sit bones" should be perched on the rear, wide part of the saddle

3) standing up - you should never let things go numb or get painful. At the first sign of any lack of feeling or pain, pedal standing up for a short distance and repeat as necessary to bring the feeling back and prevent further numbness

4) easing up - you want to lift your rear end off the saddle any time you are going to hit a bump or sharp edge. It's easier on your anatomy, your wheels, your tires, and the rest of your bike.

5) bike fit: in addition to saddle height and tilt, there is fore/aft adjustment, reach and drop to the bars, and cleat position.

6) tires: proper width with the right PSI for your weight and roads so you don't feel every single road imperfection.

7) saddle - there are some people who can ride most any saddle if it is properly adjusted (see #1) and there are some people who have problems with nearly any saddle. It's hard to predict which type you are. Work on 1-6 and if that doesn't help, THEN consider a new saddle.

Standard advice on saddle sores: ride in clean shorts, wash yourself (get into the shower) with anti bacterial soap ASAP after a ride, dry your shorts in the sunlight to let the UV kill anything the washer/drier didn't get, use mild detergents and/or rinse twice after washing. Second tier advice includes using chamois butter (or equivalent), bag balm, zinc oxide ointment, or other creams; washing before each ride (plus after); antibiotic ointment on the sores; different shorts and/or saddle. Randoneurs swear by Lantiseptic Skin Protectant (but NOT Lantiseptic Therapeutic Cream!). I'm a fan of popping the pimples before they turn nasty, while others swear you should never apply pressure (standard advice from doctors) as it can drive the infection deeper. In any event, the key is to treat early and often, as if you let things go, you're looking at some time off the saddle for full healing.

hii. Maybe it’s not even saddle sore - it’s swollen it feels like 2 golf ball size lumps on each side. I did good with chafing and my seat is good I stood as often as possible. It was when I started going faster in the last 2 hours and I didn’t really stand when I started putting ax effort into the speed 😅

The last two hours of a Century are almost always painful somewhere — feet, legs, butt, neck, shoulders — pick one! For arse pain, I’m a big fan of Chamois Butter, re-applied as the day wears on. Good shorts and a well adjusted Brooks make a big difference, too. My solution: metric centuries!

Those could be saddle sores.

Priority is a comfortable saddle and chamois combination. Chamois cream (Chamois Butt'r, Body Glide, etc.) helps a lot. Finally, find reasons to get off the saddle. Stand when powering up climbs, lift your butt off the saddle when tucking for the descents, etc.

Two the size of a golf balls? If that is true, go to a doctor. The advice here is good, but serious infections are not our specialty. If it were me. I'd go to my GP, have her look at it and probably refer me to 1) a specialist who can deal with the issue now and perhaps 2) a doc who also rides and might have advice for the future.

Saddle sores are not the place to try to "manage" a real issue. (Well perhaps if you are a pro and have a World Championship you have to try to win next we or another week of the Tour de France to ride.)

Edit: and when those who know give you the go-ahead to ride again, the best chamois fat around serious issues is the time honored Bag Balm. Been around over a century and works. No bells, whistles, magic ingredients, but it has the magic enough that cows were willing to subject their tits to the early (and crude) mechanical milkers. By comparison, our butts are an easy challenge. (And when the milkers got better, farm wives found all sorts of uses for their leftover Bag Balm. Cyclists have been using it a long time. I was told about it by a tandem stoker 30 years ago. Any not "all new" pharmacy. Green square can looking 100 years old. Less than $10.)

thank you! The swelling is gone luckily! And there’s no sores. I ordered some bag balm!

Surprising that you had two golf balls one day and no swelling the next, but it's good news. If they had persisted you definitely would be seeing a doctor.

That's the good stuff when other creams wear off, Bag Balm sticks to your fanny through the whole ride.
Apply directly on and around irritated area.

Yep, I've experienced the "golf ball" (good imagery) syndrome, too. And, unlike actual saddle sores, like you experienced this type of swelling did not involve chafing, and it has always been significantly better the next day. I'm not a Dr., but I'd guess that it's just inflammation due to riding for a significantly longer time than one is accustomed to.

What have been your typical length of rides prior to the century ride?

If you've only been doing mostly 1 or 2 hour rides and your saddle has been fine for that, then maybe your butt just wasn't use to being in the saddle that long. If you keep doing long rides more often it'll get use to it.

One thing in play here is probably as the ride gets longer and longer, you put less power into the pedals. So as your power to the pedals goes down you sit heavier.

Whether or not you need to swaps saddles only you can say for certain. But it might just be that by the time you find that magical saddle, it's not the saddle, but that your butt has gotten use to the new parameters it must operate under.

finally someone gets what I was saying haha yes this was exactly what happened! No chafing just swing and you were right it went away the next day! 🙂 ok I feel better knowing it’s normal lol

this makes a lot of sense. And since it was getting dark and my lights were dead, I definitely stopped focusing on how I’m seated and just focused on rising fast