OK, you may have a lot of experience and input, but not as a woman. For myself (and feel free the rest of the women to disagree) I don’t want to build up callouses in my delicate areas. I can’t speak for men, although I notice that men feel that they can speak for women, but women’s delicate areas are supposed to be delicate, not callosed.
unipsychler, I know the conventional wisdom is to tip the saddle back and that this will put your weight on your rear end rather than the delicate parts but I have a couple of problems with this:
the rear part of the saddle isn’t wide enough to accomodate my ‘sit bones’ - I have good wide childbearing hips, even if I wasn’t carrying any extra weight
my delicate areas get squashed by the front of the saddle if the front is tipped up more. I prefer the front to be tipped down, or at least flat, so there isn’t so much pressure on that area.
One, try different siting positions. Your back should be strait. I have my seat angled up and I have no pressure on my Weavos. Don’t worry, you won’t get callouses like on your hands after chopping a chord of wood. The skin just gets tighter and a little thicker. This happens in the crevice of where your legs connect with your crotch and not on monument of your womanhood.
When I first started riding I got bloody and had some soft skin ripped a few times doe to Underwear with thick seems at the end of the material. Now nothing happens and it is not like I have leather skin in the area. It is just tighter and somewhat thicker.
By the way mens and womens genitalia are in the exact same position anatomically. Actually when the fetus is young the genetalia develope the same before shapping itself differently for boys and girls. (That is why performing sex changes is posible nowadays.) Therefore the front of a saddle should be good for a woman if it is good for a man. You are probably correct though in wanting a wider back part of the saddle. Allthough I do see a lot of women bicycalist ride on razor thin seats. In my opintion Unicycle saddles ae so much more comfy!
By the way it is great to see that there are a lot of women and girls Unicycling. I am now in the process of teaching my niece to unicycle. She really likes Kaori. I would also like to convince my wife to take up Unicycling. I think that she would be great! Besides she always complains that I picked a hobby that I can’t involve my family in! Just got a 12" unicycle for my oldest boy he is 2 years and 9 months old! We’ll see what she says when she sees him jumping off railings! I also used to ride with my youngest son while he was in a Jerry pack on my back. He is now a year and 4 months old and just too heavy for the Jerry pack.
Unicorn’s most recent post leads to me ask a question I have been wanting to ask for ages but I haven’t started a new thread for fear of boring those of you who have been around on this forum at lot longer than me. My question is what proportion of forum members are female? The huge majority of photos and videos are see are of guys.
Because of the use of pseudonyms it is really difficult to tell a guy from a girl.
Anyone any ideas or dare I start a new thread?
Tet
Actually I have never had a problem with the crevice of my legs when unicycling. i have never needed talc or anything. My only problem has been with numbness.
And yes, I am gradually experimenting with different positions and so on.
Numbness is from blood vessels being pinched closed and blood pooling up in one area while not flowing to another area. Kind of like a leg or arm falling asleep. The best way to deal with that is by standing up and doing about 20 to 30 seconds of pedaling with no weight on the seat every 5 minutes. Play around with the times. If you are wearing thin underwear or thongs (A lot of girls wear satin and lace which is really thin.) and snug pants you should experience no chaffing at the crevice between your leg and crotch. A lot of mens underwear are made of very thick material (Especially Abercrombies.) and this is great if yo9u want to end up raw and bloody!
I think there may have been a thread in the past on it, try searching, you could dig up an old thread or start from scratch, i dont think people would mid because it is interesting. Im not sure if everyone would actually respond though, youd need alot of people to post to work it out, i reckon there might be 5-10% of females at the most. its a shame it isnt obligatory to select a gender category when you register, that way it would be possible to find out much more easily.
very good point, and an annoying thing too! wouldnt it be great to make men experience being women, i wonder how they would think differently afterwards and how much the world could change…
To the first point you made, i think that unless you have experienced riding from a womans point of view you wont have the quite enough experience required to make a full analysis, no offence or anything, and thanks for the help you have offered.
To the second point, fair enough comment and suggestion, but its still painful if we take the weight off every now and again, and most women probably prefer to cruise along feeling comfortable for at least the majority of the time, and sometimes its hard to feel comfortable for more than a minute of riding!
with regards to saddles specifically, i think flatter is better, both in angle and shape of saddle as it enables a more even distribution of weight. some of the seats are quite curved as it is, so when we’re all such different shapes we’re all going to find it quite hard to fit comfortably into the same saddle, maybe saddles should come in different size catergories?
No where did I say that I had experience riding as a woman.
Yes there are differences between men and women and transgendered and hermaphrodites or whatever but I feel that there is more in common therefore we can all help each other! Recently I visited a female Urologist. Is she not qualified to help me just because she is not a man? There are also many male Gynocologists. Are they not qualified? I would jump at th echance of being a woman for say a week or a month. Maybe then I would gain some usefull insight on how to better deal with my wife and female colleagues!
you’re quite right, and i didnt mean to undermine you or pick holes or anything, you’ve been helpful and probably do know more than most men who think they have an opinion on the matter. i think the word experience made me feel like no man could say that as it is pretty rare that they would have experinced such a situation, i suppose taking experience to mean knowledge might explain things a bit better! thanks for your suggestions though, other ideas are always helpful! knowledge is a useful thing to anyone and everyone.
If anything, I think the Freeride is actually narrower than the Nimbus Gel I ride on my other unis; I think this actually negates the comfort of the centre gutter somewhat, since I’m less well supported either side of it. You’ve tried both, right? What did you think?
The flatterness (if there is such a word) and the centre gutter both make the freeride more comfortable to ride than the nimbus gel. I didn’t notice it being narrower.
I’m pretty sure urologists and gynecologists gain their qualifications by spending many years in school studying anatomy, rather than by making unfounded assertions on internet message boards.
I have both and I’m pretty sure the freeride is more narrow, and i think its narrowness also contributes to its comfort (reduces thigh chafing) I feel stongly that it’s the most comfortable off-the-shelf uni seat made. It helps to have a rail adaptor to angle it backwards.
After reading through the recent posts in this thread I just wanted to add a few more 2 cents worth to my original post…
In terms of seats… I prefer the old style KH, flat. Tipped up really seems to put a lot of pressure on the front of my crotch and as well, its true as has been discussed here, that the seat does not seem quite wide enough for the sits bones to the rear. So good old cushy, deep and curved KH just plain flat seems to be the best combo so far.
As for riding apparral, I can’t say the riding in jeans has ever worked for me. The big thick seam right in the middle of the crotch could have something to do with the immediate discomfort I feel in jeans not to mention how they bind at the hip and knees. Cycling shorts, the ones designed for women, actually do seem to have the padding in the right places - far enough to the rear and far enough to the front. Imagine that, a piece of sports wear that actually works for who and what its been designed for!
Underwear, I can’t see how a thin bit of material up your butt would be more comfortable than no underwear at all! Nope, I’ll stick to my original KH, on which I will gently place my women’s cycle short, sans underwear, clad crotch. Add to that the T 7 allowing me more options in terms of shifting my weight on the seat while riding and I’m good to go for a 30 - 50 km day.
So far, for those that have expressed a preference (Erin & me) we prefer our seats not tipped up due to squashing. This is contrary to mens’ experience expressed in other threads where it seems to be more comfortable for men to have the front of the saddle tipped up.
Based on this clear and uncontested evidence, this blows unicon’s hypothesis that what’s good for men is good for women because we all started off the same in the womb, out of the water . (Although I must say that I tried out his suggestion of standing up on the peddals for 20 seconds or so every five minutes and did feel more comfortable in the crotch area although my knees weren’t particulary enamoured with it).
Once the ride gets beyond 10 km without any dismounts I find I start to put some weight on my touring handle so that I can shift my weight onto the rear of the seat more thus taking some of the pressure off of my genitals and more onto my sit bones. I find this much easier than actually doing the slight-stand-up pedalling technique that you mentioned Cath which I agree can be hard on the knees and seems to require more effort than its worth. However I do wonder how it would feel if the seat was slightly wider at the rear to begin with thus perhaps allowing more of a sit bone sit, as it were, all of the time.
On my two wheeler I am using a ‘ladies’ Brooks leather saddle and have been for over 20 years now. I think there is definitely something to be said for the wider saddle which takes into consideration the dimensions of the female pelvis.
I find that theres a wonderful groove or zone that can be gotten into after 10 km’s or so of continuous riding and my goal this year was to find a way to be able to stay in that groove comfortably for as long as possible. In the past, crotch discomfort forced me to dismount and walk a bit after 10 km or so. After a lot of experimentation with seat angles, different KH seats, handles and cycling clothes I have arrived at the best combo so far making it possible to put in a 40 or 50 km day ride towards the end of which it is my quads that start to give out before my crotch. Now if there was just some way to extend the life of my quads…
I tried the very-high-front saddle position for a ride, and hated it. Now all my unis (I’m male, btw) are about a half-inch higher in front than rear. I’ll echo that the numbness issue Cath mentions is non gender-specific, but as I mostly muni, it doesn’t come into play much (I must UPD at least once every five minutes, and in between am standing up while negotiating rocks, etc.). When a riding buddy and I were doing some hill training on pavement, I discovered that the Freeride saddle I liked so much on muni rides became painful very quickly.
I think it would be great if you could have the chance to experiment with different foam cut-out designs to try to find one that fit your anatomy better than the ones currently on the market. Good luck!
To add yet another XX experience, I also use women’s spandex cycling shorts, no underwear, with nylon freeride shorts overtop. I don’t have any pain in my butt bones from riding (perhaps I have a more substantial butt!), but I do tip the front of my seat up slightly, making the back of the saddle nearly parallel to the ground and creating more of a platform. In the evolution of my saddle tweaking, angling the seat, followed by the KH Freeride, followed by the acquisition of a handle, have all created the most comfortable seat combination for me yet. However, I have found no particular seat angle that significantly eases labial compression on long rides. As Podzol suggests, I just get off every once in a while, and have that lovely burning OW! moment as circulation reasserts itself.
So that is one vote for angling the front, Cathwood, but I have by no means found the ideal setup!
I’ve found that a softer seat is not always the way to go.
My KH29 came with the Fusion Street seat, which is thinner padding than the Fusion Freeride on my KH24.
I actually like long rides on the Street seat; I’ve gone for hours with it with only a few stops during the ride, and don’t feel any discomfort. I also wear biking shorts (Cannondale) and jeans or heavy shorts.
I guess it’s all what you get used to, but experimenting helps.
Here’s a thought; can the tube in an air seat be folded differently to give more width and padding in the rear for those needing or requesting it?
. (Although I must say that I tried out his suggestion of standing up on the peddals for 20 seconds or so every five minutes and did feel more comfortable in the crotch area although my knees weren’t particulary enamoured with it).