how do you guys break-in your new saddle? do you just ride till it's broken in or do you massage or use a dough roller to soften the saddle first?

cuz i rather not have the seat break my arse in... rather than my arse breaking the seat in.

Broken in? What needs to break in?

If you haven't ridden regularly, sorry, your ass will have to be broken in, it's just the way of it. Unless you are riding a leather saddle such as a Brooks, saddles don't so much break in as you either adjust or not adjust to the saddle.

yea i haven't ridden regularly.. and tried today for about 30 mins and now feeling the pain... of course, i didn't setup my saddle properly before.. so maybe that's why too.

Just saw that you are having numbness in the genital area, which leads me to wonder if you also just aren't sitting on your soft tissues instead of your sit bones, and mistaking that for a saddle not working. Have you been fitted to see if your positioning on the saddle and the position of the saddle itself is appropriate for your bike and anatomy?

actually, i don't know where i should go to get fitted. i have two saddles that i've been switch back and forth. fizik arione and the ISM adamo race. any suggestions? i'm hoping to go riding at shoreline this weekend, just to get back into riding so to speak.

ah you local. I got fit at Chain Reaction in Los Altos, I think it was 75 dollars. They do have a waiting list and a limited time they have appointments for. Once you get your initial fitting however, you can keep going back for free to tweak it a bit more and they go over your saddle, your handlebars, pedals, all of it. I'd call for pricing, however, it might have changed since I last got fit. Chain Reaction gets almost all my business because they are a) competent b) friendly c) knowledgeable d) don't talk down to you if you don't know exactly how to explain your problem with the correct terminology. Another place I would recommend is Mike's Bikes. I think they have finished construction on their huge new store in Palo Alto. They are a specialized dealer, and specialized has a saddle measuring system which assesses how far apart your sit bones are, and thus how big (wide) a saddle you need. I found them very helpful when I needed to find a good pair of insoles for my shoes, but I am not familiar with their fitting system. The Specialized BG Fit (the uber one) is very expensive, and not likely worth your time until you get pretty damn serious about cycling.

I rode the arione for awhile, but the shape kept cutting into my soft tissues (literally), so it was not the shape for me. it's a shame though, i love how it looks.

if it's sunny at shoreline this weekend, be prepared to do nothing but dodge little kids and purse dogs on the loose. if you have a bike rack, you might look at riding on canada road as part of it is closed to cars on sunday from 9am-3pm. you get to it via the edgewood exit off 280 i think (i generally ride there from woodside and am basically passing through).

Check out SMP saddles if you keep having the issue.

I went through about 10 saddles and if you find an SMP with the right width, you'll never have a numbness problem again. Your sit bones will get used to the pain and callous up. Numbness, on the other hand, was not something I wanted to get used to.