my junk went numb on a longish ride...
 

...i'm sure it wasn't a long ride by any standards on this forum, but long for me. i usually commute around a small town on a fixed gear road bike and end up riding about 10 miles a day. i just got a new selle san marco rolls saddle that's extremely comfortable compared to the generic one that was on there before. but i went on a 23 mile ride the other day and after about 18 miles old man went numb. granted i was pretty stretched out on the time trial base bars with a lot of drop in them. if i rolled off to one side of the saddle or the other the numbness would go away, but would come back quickly once centered on the saddle again. hasn't happened since, but i haven't rode that far since. i did, however put on some road bars with hoods and i'm much more upright now. do i need to angle my seat a little more nose down? or get a new saddle? any suggestions?

I would try a saddle with a generous center cut-out, and work on positioning - you should be able to stretch out for long periods without numbness. My WTB "Comfort V", after getting the positioning down pat, is comfortable and non-numbing for me... and I have a lot of difficulty in this area.

Watch your saddle positioning (the slant up and down, but also how far forward or back the entire saddle is). Also, make sure the "seat bones" in your butt are taking the weight of your body.

I currently use a Body Geometry saddle and I'm very pleased. I also make sure to wear shorts/tights with a good chamois on any ride over 3-4 miles.

This is serious stuff. I'm sure you can find alot of good info on the web as well.

I tried the cutout seats and they didn't help - I tend to slide forward on them - off my sit bones and onto nerve points. Numbness. Same thing happens if you lower the nose of the seat, that's why you see some guys with the nose up slightly - it actually keeps you on the sit bones, which then take the pressure off other parts.

So for my Trek 520, which I ride longer distances on, I recently bought a Brooks B17 narrow, and it is great - even though it is still pretty hard, I sit on it properly (with the nose slightly up) and get no numbness at all - just the opposite of what you would think.

I'm a convert on the Easy Seat. Some riders turn up their nose at them,
you won't see many around-- I just rode TOSRV and only saw one other
bike using an Easy Seat -- but my Dr. recommended it to me and it's
saved my riding.

My page on the Easy Seat:
http://www.thirdwave-websites.com/bike/easy-seat.cfm

Also take a look at:
http://www.jimlangley.net/crank/bicycleseats.html

Cheers,
Ed

Do women have this "problem" ?

Don't TT bike seats have extra long noses and padding there cause you tend to sit there a lot on the aerobars?
If that's the case, you're probably digging the nose of your seat into that soft tissue right behind your nuts...

no.
but an amusing read anyway.

I find a big blob of KY jelly smeared over the affected area before a ride helps greatly.....

I've got a Brooks B17 and have been through the whole "process". You can't just stick a seat (any seat) on the bike and think it will do. You have to adjust and adjust and adjust. It might seem a pain in the arse, so to speak, but the process will result in a seat adjustment (tilt, height and setback) that will do you for a lifetime. The adjustments end up being literally millimetre by millimetre, and a two-bolt seat clamp really helps.