Bike saddles
 

newish roadbike rider here. Own a Trek Pilot 1.2. bought it off a woman. cut out seat for a woman I think. lots of padding. Looking for ideas for a bike seat. here's the thing. I'm a heavy rider. 5'5" 197 lbs. looking for a seat that's comfortable that I can ride on for hours.

Keep looking and trying them.
Too much padding is not good on your rear.

Try One Thrid of your Weight onto your Arms and Hands.
One Thrid on your Feet and Legs
One Third of your Weight on Your butt.

What is wrong with the current saddle after riding it for a significant amount of time after adjusting it to your body which would include saddle angle, setback (or forward) and height? Ask yourself that first before looking to a new saddle.

In terms of a new saddle you need to find one the right width for you sit bones (ischial tuberosity) and try some different ones. The saddle the everyone here likes is entirely different from the other saddle that everyone here likes. Everyone's butt is different and the saddles I like may not be the same you like. You might take a few saddles to find the right one for you.

seems pretty excessive....maybe I am doing something wrong but I have very little weight on my hands/arms and I do a lot of 70-100 mile rides...I am on the heavy side for a cyclist.

Trying to put this weight off the saddle and to the spin results in more power and less need for saddle support

"I am on the heavy side for a cyclist."

Stop it. Stop with this statement. It is nonsense.

Racing road and mountain bikes I was 210 pounds. Wasn't fat, just large boned and kinda big muscles with a nice layer of fat. Not gut hanging fat, just normal daily living fat. In other words not pathetically thin, just normal. My teammates never called me fat or heavy for a cyclist, they just let me pull them to the line for the sprint!
No longer racing and over 60 I am 235 pounds and have an old man's gut. I ride and lift as always, but my body defied gravity over time and the bulk of me moved from the legs to the torso.

As for a saddle, the options and opinions of those options are endless. What works for some does not work for all, thus your quest has just begun. The saddle I use on my road bikes and up to last year on my touring bikes has always been the Sella Italia Turbo saddle. Now on the touring bikes I use a Brooks B17. On the mountain bike the Turbo saddle was it, then on the 29er I kept the Fizik Aliente that came with it. Again, the choices are endless and time in the saddle will determine which choice is the right choice for your butt.

Me NY to LA 4200 Miles 55 days

Veganbikes made a good point above: even if everything about the bike is perfect for you, you're going to need to get your body accustomed to riding. Going our for a series of shorter rides (maybe 15 or 20 minutes each) over the course of two or three weeks would be much better than doing rides of an hour or more right off the bat.

That said: you say you're new to cycling. Might be a good idea to look at some videos aimed at beginning riders that address issues such as choosing the right style of bike for the kind of riding you have in mind, choosing the right size of bike, adjusting the bike to fit you comfortably, etc. (You might already have the right style and size of bike and it might already be adjusted just right for you, but it can't hurt to confirm those points.)

What's wrong with the current seat? I, and many others, prefer a seat that has part of it cut out. Works well to relieve pressure off of certain areas of our body that don't need to be in such heavy contact with the seat.

Seats with cut-outs, like step-through frames, have benefits for both sexes (plus any I forgot).

Welcome to the forum...

Ok Fat Arse.... Ha
Start here but remember all the comfortable seats/saddles were snapped up by Elves at the turn of Middle Earth...

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9ea1a7d90b.png
Amazon

There should not be that much on the hands. It should be more like 50% legs, 40% butt and 10% hands.

When you are pedaling hard, it comes naturally, that your legs would push down on the pedals and take the weight off your butt. When you are coasting, stiffen one leg and slightly stand (not standing up, but just enough to take some weight) on that leg to take the weight off your butt.

As with any “newish” rider, saddle comfort comes first with time in the saddle. I think many riders give up on bike riding because there rear hurts too much. It can be very difficult to survive the pain if you don’t toughen up the bottom gradually. Finding a seat right off the bat that will allow you to ride for hours at a time pain free is a myth for the majority. After 60 years of riding with many different saddles, at some point during a ride my butt starts getting uncomfortable. That’s just how it’s made down there. Even sitting on a chair or even a couch without adjusting your position now and then can hurt too. Experiment with different saddles and learn ways to lift off and/or move around to extend your rides to make them more comfortable, but most of all gradually increase your time on the bike.

FIGJAM alert.

Search online for ways to measure the actual width of your ischea .... if you find where the support bones are located in Your butt, you can find a saddle width which puts support where you needed it. Then it is just trial and error. Everyone sits a little different, at different angles, had different flexibility ...

Explore Bike Fit online generally ... there are plenty of good guides for fitting a rider to a bike, and there is no reason (that I can see) to pay hundreds of dollars unless you are already advanced and trying to fine-tune your form. For a beginning rider, your body will change so much in the first season of riding, there will be a different "perfect" fit will change weekly. Learn the basics, particularly making sure your saddle placement is correct in relation to the bottom bracket, and carry tools to fine-tune your saddle position on the road. (I was equally long-winded in a post about home-bike-fitting in post six in this thread https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...ndle-bars.html)

Stems are generally cheaper than saddles ... make sure your bars are at the right height and distance, and swap stems to get them right before you start thinking about saddles. Some riders have the bars too low or too far away, and have to tilt the saddle to reach the bars without getting jabbed .... which puts extras weigh t on your hands and makes you push back to keep form sliding forward. Everyone is different but most people seem to run their saddles pretty close to flat or with a slight nose-down angle---very slight. If your saddle is tilted, you probably need to address reach and maybe saddle height.

After several months, you will probably settle into a comfortable riding posture, and will be able to make fairly long-lasting adjustments to make sure all the contact points (saddle, bars, pedals) are dialed in for your body and capacity. Then and only then can you start thinking about a better saddle.

Well ... of course, if you want to buy a big cushy saddle now and another later, or use one of those mega-thick gel covers or whatever ... go for it. Maybe you will like it and keep it, maybe down the road you will find you want less padding and more support (I find soft saddles lead to chafing and saddle sores eventually, but if you are doing 1/2-hour rides or whatever, it probably won't be an issue.) Just don't (unless you want to) drop big bucks on a new saddle until you are sure where you want it and what size you need and all that. I have found some pretty cheap saddle which work great, and also found what general shapes work for me and then bought higher-quality saddles (longer-0lasting) in about the same shape.

As Chain smoker smoker notes, part of learning to ride is training different parts of your body to work in new ways. You aren't used to pushing down with your legs for long periods, so your legs will get tired, which leads to putting too much weight on the buttocks and hands, ... then your whole body hurts and you think cycling sucks. Actually, it is just that you aren't ready yet.

Keep riding, keep concentrating on using your legs more than your seat for support, and realize that when you find yourself leaning on your arms it is likely you have worn out your legs and it is time to head home.

As you spend less time sitting on the saddle and also develop the specific buttocks muscles used for sitting on a saddle, you will then start to see where the saddle fits and doesn't fit you.

I like saddles with a central channel or cutout, but not everyone does. I like saddles which are wide in back (for my giant fat butt) but not wide in the nose (so my giant fat thighs don't rub.) I don't like really long noses and I generally don't like flat saddles as I move around more than some .... if you are a rider who "assumes a position" and then just pedals, a flat saddle might offer more support. i fidget, so flat saddles tend to dig in when I shift.

After you ride a while and try a few cheap saddles (some bike shops have swap saddles, where they will let you try different used saddles for a short while ... but if they do, be upright and actually buy the right saddle from them when you find it ....

You can argue about the relative proportions, but building core strength is another key to comfort. If your core can't support you, your hands will not be able to bear any weight and more will be on your but. Also note that pedaling harder effectively reduces the weight on your saddle.

It's true that we have to break our butts in to fit saddles, but softer saddles tend to compress, so they get hard, often in the worst places, even though they start out soft.

Sitbone width is not the right measurement. If you lean forward to reach the handlebars, your weight is likely to be born by the pubic rami, which start at the sitbones and get narrower as they go forward. Variations in the angle, curve, and length of the pubic rami are probably part of the reason that the saddle that works for some of us doesn't work for others. Then there's the fact that a lot of saddles will work well for 20 minutes, but hurt after 2 hours. Worse, some that are fine for 2 hours, hurt after 3.

You really have to experiment to find one that works for you.

Padding should be in your shorts, not on the seat, IMO.

I use a completely unpadded Brooks C15 on my gravel/commuter bike, and a very lightly padded Giant Fleet SL on my road bike, and in conjunction with decent bib shorts they are comfortable for hours and hours of cycling.

Philbob57, your explanation of why sit bone measurement is misleading and not always accurate is the best I have encountered, and explains why different saddles work for the same rider in different body positions on the bike. Comes down to testing saddles to find the magic solution.

I was wondering when someone was going to mention padded cycling shorts. I'd assume that very few people here go on long rides without also wearing padded cycling shorts.

As others have said, these things are personal. I also prefer saddles with a generous center cutout section. And I like the advice given earlier to figure out what you don't like about the saddle you currently have and then use that info to choose a new saddle. I'd just add that you should probably get a couple pairs (minimum) of cycling shorts while doing that initial evaluation - if you are going to be using cycling shorts. Be sure to start a thread asking which cycling shorts are best. :^)

Thank you for the advice. your second paragraph was helpful. The first paragraph- you didn't like how I phrased it? ok I'l try it a different way maybe makes more sense. My power to weight ratio sucks. 200 lbs may be ok for a tall person who can put out some watts, and not so much for a shorter person lacking muscle.

I hear what you're saying, and I really can't blame the shorts. I have so-so Santic bibs I've done 30 miles in no problem and really nice PearlZumi shorts that my butt was killing me in. I think I need to lose the weight, gain the muscle in my legs, and increase my sufferage time on the bike. Reason for the post about the seat is wondering if I could improve the riding by changing out the womans cut out seat with one built more for my body.

Spinning and saddle support, that's a worthwhile discussion.

The saddle and the bike shorts (or bibs):

I think of the saddle as the "fixed" thing and the shorts as the "variable".

The variable because riders will tend to "shift around" when riding depending on the conditions such as elevation, speed, etc.

It may be unlikely that the fixed and variable will always "match up" during a ride. As long as a rider is aware of this dynamic, a rider can "game" the position to alleviate some discomfort.

One thing about the sit bones and the tissue around it. The outer skin may develop some hardening and discoloration. What is of greater significance is the tissue underneath. Prolonged irritation may cause a small callous to develop in the tissue. A small one to begin with and later the nerve endings will transmit some pain.