vsopking

Hi there - After work I usually jump on my life cycle trainer (it's too dark and too late to jump on the bike).
The saddle on the trainer is a bit too soft; my bottom sinks a bit in it, whereas the tip of the saddle points upwards.

Anyway, after half an hour training my bottom and manhood is almost feeling numb. It is not that awfull, however that feeling is still there the next day - and I also have a strange vague awkward feeling in one of my testicles. Like I cut off my blood vessel or what.

Tried to cycle/sit on a small foam pad just placed under the sitbones only, but that's still not feeling right - hurts my back too.

I need to switch the saddle of the trainer; but a problem is that the seat tube isn't cilindrical but a square tube.
To fit a new saddle I will have to revamp/adapt the square tube to fit a standard seat post.

Any tips?

Hezz

I have a life cycle trainer and here is what I did for real cheap to fabricate a seat post that would work with any saddle. All you will need is a drill and a hacksaw to make it. I have a Lifecycle HR which uses a 1 inch square tubular seat post. Because other members of the family use the trainer I decided to keep the original seatpost for others that wanted to use that seat.

If the seat post won't come all of the way out you have to remove the stop spring. This is more so people won't remove or change the seats in a gym and will have no negative effect on your trainer. You have to remove some of the screws holding the plastic cover around the rear of the trainer until you can pry it apart enough to get a screwdriver into the spring stop pin. Just push the pin in as you raise the seat post. Once it is held in by the upper seat tube it will slide out. Then take the screw out of the plastic end bumper. Using a screw driver or pliers take out the spring pin. The seat post will now slide all of the way out so you can put in your custom seat post with your personal seat.

How to make the custom seat post:

The original trainer seatpost measures 1.009 inches on my trainer. I had a piece of scrap 1 inch tubular which was 1.004 so it will slide down just fine. You can buy a piece of this about 24 inches long at Home Depot for 5 bucks or so. While you are there buy a 1/2 x 4 or 1/2 inch x 6 galvanized or black pipe nipple. This will cost 1-2 bucks.

Actually buy the nipple first and make sure that it can slide down into the 1 inch tubular pipe without being too loose. The square tubular comes in different thicknesses which they might not have at Home Depot. But more than likely they will have the most common wall thickness which is .063 or .083 inches.

The outer diameter of the 1/2 inch pipe just happens to be very close to the outer diameter of the old style seat post mount. The kind that is still used on inexpensive bikes. So you will need one of those seat post clamps that clamp around the round stock.

Put the nipple in a vise and hacksaw off the thread form on one side but leave the other side intact. The idea now is to slide the nipple with the threaded end into the end of the square tubular pipe. After cleaning the square tubing of course. If the fit is not snug and wiggle free wrap the nipple with duct tape but leave the threads uncovered. If the nipple just won't slide into the square tube then get a metal file and file it a little on each of four sides until it slides in without making much movement. You are relying on the square tubing to align the nipple. Make sure that you leave about 1.5 - 2 inches of the nipple exposed to mount the seat clamp to.

Now you need some epoxy glue or some silicone glue and some epoxy casting resin. First you need to seal off the open end of the nipple and the little shoulders of the square tubing with either silicone glue or thick epoxy glue. don't use too much. Just enough to seal the holes so they won't leak.

Once you have sealed the holes and the glue or epoxy has cured. Turn the assembly over and secure the assembly with the open end of the square tube facing up. You now need to mix enough of a low viscous epoxy casting resin and hardener to fill up the tube to a couple of inches past the nipple thread. This should take about 4-5 cubic inches of material. Make sure the resin and hardener are well mixed and runny so it will fill in all of the small gaps and cracks down in the assembly. When it cures you have a good strong seat post for your Lifecycle. All you need to do is drill three or four holes of the right size in the square tubular post to set the ride height. If you are the only one using this then you don't need to drill more than a few holes since you can estimate the height that you need from the other seat.

Now you can mount any type of bike seat you want on that post. And quickly replace the original seat post if someone else wants to use it.

EDIT: For some reason I didn't look at your location. So of course finding inch materials may be difficult. But the same techniques can be used with metric materials if the sizes are close to the same. Also, there is an internet site that sells adapters for 20USD. I can't remember the exact web site name. Google exercise bike seats or something like that.

vsopking

Thank you Hezz! That's a great tip!