How long can you sit on that saddle?

General
23

These narrow saddles press against the perineum, unless you consciously push backwards and sit on the rear crest of the saddle. So that is where all my weight is concentrated, all 77 kg of it. Shorts make no difference, because we are not discussing chafe here, but pressure. I did notice last night that having both hands on the handlebar helped.

You say 40 to 50 miles?! that is ten times what I do on a good day. I am amazed. I would have to stop and rest twenty times, not that I would even get close to that distance.

Slamdance mentioned letting air out. I went from 65 to 30 psi on my 24", I am afraid to do less, lest I crush the tube. It helped.

Unicyclemos says it is hard to tell the difference between carbon and plastic saddles. You are right about that. I suppose I tried to throw money at the problem and got my just deserts.

24

The standard DIY way is to put a layer or two of corrugated cardboard on a hard low bench and then sit on it and push your arse into it. Your upper leg wants to be at a slight upwards angle towards your knees - you should be able to feel the pressure under your sit bones. You could maybe get away with doing it on a closed toilet seat if you can get your feet up a little.

When you get up again you should see some indentations - measure centre to centre of those and youā€™re done.

The commercial machines that some bike shops use do basically the same thing but can measure the pressure in different areas electronically.

25

Due to saddle issues or general stamina?

If stamina, it does take some time to build it up and improve the efficiency of your riding.

Learning to ride with both hands on handlebars can be a quick way to boost your balance and riding efficiency as any large energetic movements will be more than you re-balance with your upper body.
Donā€™t be afraid to adjust your handlebars though - try taking a couple of tools with you and changing something half way into your ride. By the time youā€™re home again youā€™ll probably have figured out whether you made a positive change or not.

26

Hey are you trying to hide what those U springs are mounted to??? :wink:

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29

We think alike - I always have a set of Allen wrenches in my pocket when I ride. Is it low stamina or pain? Good question. I am sure I could keep on riding if I was perfectly comfortable. The fact is that pain itself is exhausting, and prevents you from relaxing properly.

On the other hand, I do find riding demanding. During the summer after an hourā€™s ride I could take my tee shirt and wring out the sweat like I had gone for a swim. Itā€™s a real workout. The conversation here has been very helpful, and over the past two days I have been concentrating on keeping both hands on the handlebars. I like the challenge, but frankly it takes even more effort right now than flapping my wings as I go, so to speak.

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30

How do you have your saddle adjusted? Most riders find that with the nose up as far as possible will put more weight on the back of the saddle and on your sit bones (rather then more sensitive parts).
Depending on what kind of saddle you have you can add spacer washers if need to raise the nose.

31

Good point. I noticed that too. Where the saddle has the elongated holes, I have it slid all the way nose up. I also have a KH Fusion One with the pivotal post. That one was a disappointment. I got it for precisely this reason, so I could adjust it nose-up more than the others. Unfortunately the indentations only permit adjustments in five-degree increments, which is much too coarse. They need to rethink that one.

32

Yep I always wondered why no one offers a seat post where the notches would be slightly offset. This way, it would be possible to adjust in 2.5Ā° angle increment by flipping the seat post 180Ā°.

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34

i think the mad4one seatpost does this

https://unaruota.com/ZC/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=35_40&products_id=937&zenid=fdthqcusjdrmredhdp48nma9p5

check it out!

35

Yes. Youā€™ll have to take them off, put the air saddle cover on the seat, then put the bumpers back on, over the saddle cover.

36

Yep thatā€™s a cool one, but we were talking about the ā€œPivotalā€ seat post which is required with a KH Zero or One saddle. They have notches but for some reason (simpler to produce is my guess), the notches are symmetrical. Whereas giving them a 2.5Ā° offset would have allowed users a more precise adjustment of the saddle angle.

37

There are pivotal seatposts out in the bike world that do this trick.

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38

I doubt it makes much difference to produce one way or another. More likely, a case of lack of imagination.

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39

Cool! Makes sense that someone would have thought about this. Any brands you know of?

40

This is only part of the reason for raising the front of the saddle. It is also control.

Unicycle saddles control the direction of the unicycle unlike bike saddles. So as you press on each crank in turn the unicycle will turn in that direction. The front of the saddle then holds/pushes it back in the opposite direction. The best point on the body to do that pushing is at the top of the leg where it joins on to the trunk of the body as this does not move much as you pedal.

Muni riders need to lower their saddles as they use their legs for suspension. So by raising the angle of their saddles so that the front is higher the contact point stays the same.

You will find it unusual for long distance riders to tilt their saddles anything like as much as muni riders as they tend to ride with the saddle closer to the top position to get the best pedalling action and also they lean forwards to hold the handles.

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41

Interesting thoughts by Roger. Although Iā€™m not sure how much difference the front of the saddle bening up really makes for control, at least for ā€œadvancedā€ riders that spin their cranks relatively smoothly, and will have a hand on their seat for control pretty much the whole time.

Iā€™d say shoulder to handle distance may actually be the more interesting factor for muni riders, itā€™s an issue that Iā€™ve thought about a fair bit when building my mini-tbar. Essentially, I donā€™t want to ā€œreach downā€ too far when extending my legs fully on jumps, but when sitting down, I donā€™t want too much bend in my arms either. (Turns out having the handle at pretty much saddle height is not only the easiest solution engineering wise, but also more comfortable for me).

I think this is more the important part. I ride my muni saddle relatively flat, since Iā€™ve found an upward tilt to really be uncomfortable when leaning forward, which I do a lot on the faster sections. In the situation where my body is upright, Iā€™m leaning on the handle/tbar on flat sections, and hover over the seat on technical bits - no need to tilt up the seat when doing either of that.

So my tip for finding your ideal seat position is: play around with your settings and riding position. They may need to change because of different riding positions, and you might find the opposite of what everyone tells you more comfortable, depending on your terrain, body position and riding style.

I (and from what I can tell a lot of track/distance riders that are much faster than me) like pushing down on the front of the seat to spin fast, which also makes sitting more comfortable. Even if you donā€™t adapt that position the whole time, itā€™s certainly something to do to shift your position around a bit. (Pretty much what elpuebloUNIdo and Setonix already said)

I donā€™t think suspension seatposts will make seats more comfortable, they can only help to limit peak forces, but the issues most people (on bikes and unicycles) have with their seat is where the forces are introduced to the body, not how big they are. Iā€™d still love to test out a suspension fork one day, just in case Iā€™m wrong. (Something with at least air pressure adjustment, maybe even rebound and compression, I donā€™t think just throwing on a fork with standard adjustments for bicycles would be giving it a fair chance)

42

oh, my bad. the reason kh used that design for the seat post is because they are very popular for bmx.

https://www.danscomp.com/search?s=seat+post+pivotal

so if you break or bend your seatpost, you could just go to the bike shop and get a new one for 20 bucks or so, no having to wait for unicycle.com to ship you one.

43

The evolution of my saddle angle started neutral. Then, once I started riding longer distances and got uncomfortably wedged in the narrow middle of the saddle, I pointed the nose up and found sitting on the back of the saddle more comfortable. Once I learned how to position myself on the seat using handlebars, however, I tilted the nose back down. My current saddle setup is pretty neutral. I want the back of the saddle to be higher than the middle of the saddle, because my sit bones are pretty precisely positioned on the back of the seat. In this position, I can apply weight downward and also pull hard on the bar ends in a backward direction without the saddle slipping under me. I have the greatest amount of leverage in this position, and it helps a lot climbing hills and spinning through the dead zone.

I love the Naomi saddle I use, but I would prefer it to be an inch wider. Is anyone aware of a firm, light saddle with larger dimensions? Saddles seem to be designed for small people.

44

I think saddles are designed for slimmer people I would say. I always wonder if I lose weight and have less fat on my thighs, that there will be less rubbing from the seat. But contrary to what you are saying, I think with thicker thighs, the seats should be narrower, not wider.
This just proves again who subjective comfortable seats are to people. Weā€™re all different.

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45

If you wonder about if you should loose weight, then you should loose weight. :grin::wink:

I think that being light weight can only help.

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