Barrett wrote:
> Hi,
> I ride back and forth to work every day (about 5miles each way) and
> can't find a seat that fits me right (I also think it's effecting my
> health in certain ways). Can someone give me recommendations and advice
> based on personal experiance about seats like the "easyseat".
>
These seats aren't a bad idea, but they don't work because a normal
bicycle frame requires you to extend your legs /downward/ to pedal. So
(for an upright bike frame) you need a seat that has a "nose", and any
seat that has a "nose" isn't going to be very supportive (and that's why
no other vehicles or chairs use the same kind of seat!). After years of
riding moderately-expensive ($1500) upright road and MTB bikes, I can
say that I never found any seat to be much different than any other.
Using a full-suspended MTB helps somewhat, as does a suspension
seatpost, but they don't get around the cause of the problem which is
the tiny saddle. It's now my belief that if you can't stand the upright
bicycle saddle, then you shouldn't buy ANYTHING that has one.
There are a class of bikes being made now that were an outgrowth of the
"comfort"-type bikes. RANS makes their sport series, which they call
crank-forward bikes. These use a very-relaxed "diamond frame", almost a
low-rider (you can put both feet on the ground while sitting on the
seat) and also use a special noseless seat. After getting rid of my
upright bikes I didn't think I'd be buying any more--but I have bought a
Fusion and it pretty much eliminates saddle discomfort, and there's very
little pressure on your hands/arms. There's a bit of getting used to the
seat because the edges are flexible so it's like sitting on top of a big
rubber ball, but there's no pressure from the seat edges and you get
much more seating support, and it's easy as an upright to ride and can
be rode aggresively, and for long distances. The RANS crank-forward
bikes start at around $900.
Lightfoot Cycles also makes a similar-geometry bike, the Surefoot
cruiser, for $750. The Surefoot has one drawback in that it still uses a
conventional bicycle saddle (it comes with a big plush one, but still).
There are other crank-forward bikes available--usually for much
less--such as the Giant Revive and Sun SunRay. I don't think highly of
most of these but they can work for some people. Most of them have two
problems in that they have a relaxed frame geometry but they don't move
the cranks forward enough, and most of the cheaper ones still use a
regular bicycle saddle, which is often a big part of the discomfort
problem.
There's also full-blown recumbents: there's at least three that start at
around $600 (Sun [dealer sales], Cycle Genius [dealer sales] and
Actionbent [mail-order]), and there are used recumbents to be had as
well. Recumbents have a couple disadvantages (more difficult to
transport, more expensive than a similarly-equipped upright bike) but
then,,,, they don't hurt to ride. They are usually a few pounds heavier
than an upright as well--but most riders happily accept that for the
huge increase in riding comfort. From what I've seen, you will be able
to ride a recumbent 3-5 times as far as you would an upright bike. CLWB
recumbents are fairly compact overall and are pretty easy to ride.
~
