I’ve searched this forum to no avail in finding an answer to the questions below. If there is a link that addresses them, please let me know.
The rear end…the tail bone part…that’s the section that’s killing me on rides. No problem with the “dragon’s pearls” or any other tender sections. But the top part of my derrière just south of the spine seems to suffer from either friction or some other malady when I ride. Lots of pain. I’m using an air saddle (Torker air saddle on my 29er and KH air saddle on my KH XC 24") and bicycle pants. I pump up the air saddle until it is about halfway filled with air.
I weigh about 210 pounds and wish that there were saddles that were another size larger than the usual size, but it seems that they come in one size only.
Has anyone experienced this sort of thing? Do you have any solutions? Thanks for your constructive comments.
I use a KH seat the foam cut down pretty thin with this gel pad on top. http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4645497 You don’t need to modify it at all even though it seams too wide at first. The fusion cover pulls it into place nicely. The center void is what makes it very comfortable. I have found this to be the most comfortable of several seats i’ve tried. And it’s cheap! Also using a rail adapter and rail type seat post will allow you to tilt your seat back. This will put your weight more on the back of the seat. I’ve found no seat is that very comfortable without tilting it back.
I think this is a basic problem with any air seat. I have an old style Scott Wallis CB seat that uses a 12 inch tube, and unless it is taped just right and has enough PSI it will bunch up in your ass crack–like sitting on a sausage. That´s why Scott switched to a much stiffer air cushion.
I still prefer the old tube style because it cushions all the drops and rocky rolling I usually do. By and large we (up in Santa Barbara–a muni only group) rarely ride for more than a quarter mile at a go, sometimes much less, so I´m getting on and off the saddle a lot to session on stuff and try multiple lines down a given stretch. On easier trails, when we might blaze nonstop for a mile or so, the air saddle is not so good and I go numb.
So generally I think the more you stay in the saddle without getting off, the more you might consider something like a gel set up or one of Scott´s other, firmer seats. I weight 210, so on drops over about 4 feet it´s nice, but not essential, to have the suave air cushion.
I have found that it is the angle of the seat that has been causing me similar pains. If you use a standard uni seat and post you only get about 5 degrees of variation. I have modified one seat post to raise the front of the seat to a higher angle. You can also buy a rail type post and adaptor from unicycle.com to achieve this. This has made long distance riding for me much more comfortable as I am now sitting more on my butt than on the more sensitive middle areas. The upside is that my back/tail bone does not hurt nearly as much. The downside is that I have to ‘rearrange the furniture’ a little more to ride comfortably.
I too am from the Indianapolis area. If you ride downtown around the canal area, I have probably seen you. I tried to flag the uni rider down but he had headphones on and was in another world at the time.