Unicycling Shorts for long rides

Yeah… I bought the KH unicycle a couple years ago, so the KH One wasn’t out yet. My bad for not being more specific.

To answer your question… there is a 3rd hole that is kind of in the middle of the two holes you were referring to. I had to take that screw out in order for that plate to fit. I’m not familiar with the reinforcement plate.

And topped with an aromatic brown sauce. :o

Un this case i’m not sure to understand how this centered 3rd hole is supposed to lock the kh reiforcement plate, and I didn’t see any document explaing this on the kris holm official Web site

I found a picture of the bottom. I remember hearing something about having to drill a hole or that they changed something after the initial release to avoid having to drill. Don’t quote me on that though. Keep in mind that I’m not sure which handle bar I have and it’s also a couple years old.

“All reinforcement plates shipped after Spring 2016 come with a 3rd hole that is needed to install the reinforcement plate. Older plates can be retrofitted if the rider is able/willing to drill a hole in the plate.”

http://krisholm.com/blog/introducing-the-redesigned-fusion-one-saddle

There ya go

Thanks !

Went out for an almost 8 mile ride today on the new saddle (7 of which I didn’t dismount). Overall it felt better than the fusion zero, but the last 2 miles IO was struggling to stay comfortable.

I think a majority of my problems come from me not riding as straight as I should be. That being said, the aftermath isn’t so bad. The pain is mostly on my sit bones now. The hardened area/spot on my inner thighs (which was almost fully healed) wasn’t aggravated at all.

Mostly what I am left with is just muscle soreness. Feels really really really good to stretch. I’ll have to post another update after this to gauge whether I could ride again without pain over the next couple days. My sit bones feel okay right now, but I’m sure it’ll be a lot more noticeable when I get on the unicycle.

I’m starting to agree with all of you that I just need to get out and ride more. I fell at the 7 mile mark on my feet, but my legs just buckled because my muscles were tired… so I kinda did a roll. Tried to mount again too soon and fell after about 50 ft. Waited that out for a few minutes and then hopped back on and I was fine. Anyways… definitely more like post-workout pain now rather than non-post-workout pain.

Just another quick update…

Went out for a 4.5 mile ride yesterday. No noticeable soreness. My thighs got pretty tired so I cut the ride a bit short.

My conclusion is that the seat helped a bit, but also just getting out there and riding more helped. Whether it was the fact that my muscles strengthened a bit which helped me loosen up while riding or whether it was my sit bones and general area getting used to riding, OR a combination of both… I will never know for certain. I think it’s just a lot of little things that add up. Haven’t lost any weight yet, so I’m assuming it’ll just get easier and easier.

Thank you all again for the advice. I hope this post helps anyone asking the same questions.

I was struggling with the same thing and figured it out between a bunch of things. Got a nice pair of shorts, adjusted my seat angle and switched to shorter cranks (127 from 150). The cranks had a larger affect than I figured, less shifting on my saddle I figure.

As some have mentioned, bike shorts can sometimes have too much padding to be comfortable with our padded unicycle seats. I have found tri shorts to work great. They are bike shorts used by triathletes. They have minimal padding which I’ve found works perfect on the uni.

I’m still with the Fusion Freeride saddle, did not pull the trigger for the fusion One yet.
I have played with different seat angles, like you can see on those photos :

Setting on the first pic was horrible, it was causing way too much pressure on the crotch, on the contrary the front of the saddle pointing up (2nd photo) is the setting that caused the less crotch pain, even if it forced me to inverse the angle of the T-bar, (which liberated some space under it to put a DIY amovible mp3 station, which makes the rides even more pleasant. :slight_smile: ) :

Anyway, the crotch pain associated with the 2nd setting takes more time to come and is different, but it still comes eventually.
It seems to be due, in my case, to numbness after a while without breaks, while the crotch pain associated with the first pic was, like I said, more like a pressure issue (and was way less manageable).

BUT I must bring the precision : I wear 2 pairs of padded shorts at a time as an attempt to reduce pain associated with pressure, so what you guys say seems to make sens: seat angle plays a great role in the crotch pain, and maybe I should try to wear only one pair of padded shorts to see if it lets the blood circulation of the crotch area working better (cause of numbness I guess)
Of course I also use lubricant cream.

IMHO the reason why the second setting reduces the pressure crotch pain is that it offers a greater horizontal place to seat in (the rear of the saddle), more surface = less force per cm² = less pressure, as far as you use the handlebar to seat on the rear of the saddle.
That’s why I’m not 100% sure the Fusion One saddle (which is thinner on the rear) would work better for me, but that would deserve a try I guess.

My mUni/XC setup has the Nimbus Stadium seat and the Shadow base and handle. The setup is very firm. Most of my weight in the seat is on my sit-bones. It just occurred to me that a softer seat causes the sit bones to sink further into the padding of the seat, resulting in increased pressure on the privates. Conversely, as I mentioned above, the harder seat potentially places more weight right on the sit bones, taking the pressure off the privates. In most situations where I’m holding the seat handle, I tend to sit on the back of the seat. I experimented with tilting the nose of the seat up, but I’ve found that I prefer the back of the seat to arch upward slightly, so when I sit on the back of the seat, the sit bones, again, are supporting most of the weight, against the perimeter of the back of the seat. I also wear padded bike shorts.

That could explain why they made the cutaway in the middle deeper on the Fusion One. Adding the softer foam on top of the seat probably required a deeper cutaway to make up for the added cushioning.

The comfort groove is meant to take pressure off the perennial muscle. But I can’t see the prunes fitting in there :slight_smile:

BTW, the step saddle in my previous post is a Nimbus gel saddle which has been straightened out.

Another way to deal with the upward curve at the front, is to cut away a portion of the foam like did with this KH Fusion saddle.

I also removed the upward rear curve by straightening out the rear end of the plastic saddle base.

DSCF0856.JPG

Well yeah… They wouldn’t be back far enough to fit there anyways. They’d have to be really small and you’d probably have to be an old guy for them to be that far back :slight_smile: When he said pressure, I was thinking of the taint area and the nerves that are down there. There’s extra room with the cutaway, so potentially less pressure on those nerves.

After ignoring my 29er for several months, I took it on a ride, yesterday. It has a Fusion Freeride saddle with an attached KH T-Bar. I noticed how comfortable the Freeride was at the beginning of my ride, as well as how uncomfortable it was by the end of the ride. Also, I found I was slightly bouncing up and down on the seat during each pedal stroke, which got worse as the ride progressed. And I was sinking pretty far into the back of the seat.

Sometimes it’s nice to compare setups. My main muni is a 26" Oracle with a Stadium saddle and a T-Bar. Riding the 29er, above, made me realize how much I prefer the Stadium/Shadow setup.

One of the recent posters on this thread mentioned an improvement in comfort by tilting up the nose of the Fusion Freeride saddle (which flattens out the back of the saddle). I think the opposite may be true for me. I use handle bars and sit far back on my seat during muni. Tilting the nose down raises the back of the seat, and the weight of my butt is distributed more around the perimeter of the rear of the seat. Unfortunately, the Freeride is spongier in the rear of the seat, and it compresses when I sit on it. I wonder if the Freeride was always so soft. Does it only seem that way because now I use a Stadium saddle, or has the foam in the Freeride softened up?

I tried raising the front of my KH Zero after I read that recommendation and it seemed to make it a bit worse. I have it at a slight angle now and it’s working pretty well.

Reflecting on the past few weeks… I think the initial bump on the inside of my leg had to do with that tendon or whatever it was rubbing against the side of the seat. The KH One helps a bit since the curve is elongated, but ultimately, being aware of where my butt is sitting on the seat is what will help. Adjusting forward or backward prevents that aggressive rubbing. The 7 mile ride (without UPD) went great. Only issue was my thighs getting extremely tired at the end, and ultimately buckling when I did UPD. I was attempting for 2 x 6 mile legs of a 50 mile bike event. I had to stop after that first segment though. I figured it was better to be safe. Plus I’d be stuck out in the middle of corn fields if I couldn’t go any further and I’d have to walk the rest of the segment to get to a town. :slight_smile:

I need to get out today!!! I haven’t been out in 2 weeks!!!

Thanks for the feedback.

I’m still with the freeride, since my last post I also tried to enlarge the groove inside the foam, and I stretched the cover during all the week end.
Then I tested it on a 38 km ride and found that it was a bit better.
But the cover didn’t stay on the bottom of the groove.

So, inspired by a tutorial video from Terry I decided to do the same thing (nearly).

I removed the cover, sanded more foam to make the groove larger and deeper.
Then I super-glued a scratch band to the bottom of the groove and stitched the other scratch band to the inside of the cover (this part was easier than I thought) and just put all together.
I didn’t put any spray glue on the cover.

Not: this is an old kh cover with extensible tissue on the top of it.

Here are some photos :

Sorry for the fuzzy photo:

Modified the photo luminosity to make the groove appear.

While the test ride:

I tested this setting yesterday on a 54km very mixed G36 ride.
It was way better, at least during the first 45km, then it started to be a bit less comfortable for the last 10 km.

The ride started at about 1 pm and I was back home at 6 or 7 pm, even if I took many breaks, I spent a lot of time on the saddle cause I also had a lot of low speed parts (walking speed) .
Considering that, the crotch pain I used to feel came very later than without this modification.

I also used to wear two padded shorts at the same time but started to use one only 3 or 4 rides ago to avoid numbness on the crotch area.
So It feels harder than when I wear two padded shorts but the crotch pain is just not there anymore.

The only downside is when I go out of the saddle and on again quickly (bump, hops) sometimes it hurts, for Men reasons, you know what I mean… but I’m rather happy with this simple mod.

Thanks Terry for this (old) vidéo.

I hope the uni seat makers are reading this thread …

Lots of us are not into DIY. :stuck_out_tongue:

You are right.
On the other hand, I tend to think that DIY is part of this sport, and it just adds more things to learn.

Now, the last batch of kh saddles (fusion one) is the proof that they do read the threads of this forum.
The channel is clearly visible now, and you still can enlarge it if you want.
For those who just want to make their freeride more forgiving for long rides, the solutions are not so complicated and definitely are worth it.