Saddle Numbness

Any advice for a taller rider on saddle choice for reducing or eliminating numbness in, ahem, certain areas. I'm 6'5" so I suspect that a lot of the advice out there thats applicable to shorter riders doesn't apply to me given the size of my wide load of a backside.

I currently use a Trans Am MAX (no Gel) and have been noticing this on my trainer more than on the road (I'm not sure why - maybe its just a good excuse to get off my trainer).

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

Have you thought about a much larger saddle like a Lazer by wtb? i know its a mtb saddle but the rear is nice and wide and its quite a soft saddle. Saddle width is more important than the cut out for distribution of pressure.

 

You might want to try tilting the saddle nose slightly downward to move the pressure back from your crotch to your sitz bones.

Soft saddles may not be the way to go either; if your bones sink into nice comfy foam, it means the pressure is being taken up elsewhere.

 

I'd steer clear of softer saddles and saddles with thick gel padding - Under big man weight this thick gel and foam tends to deform and put more pressure on the "soft parts" - you need firm support. Most of the big riders I know (myself included at 6'2, 250 and wide in the hips) find happiness with the SI Turbomatic 4. I have two - both the gel and non-gel version - the new gel version (not the three-spot) is firmer but more confy on longer outings. Also no other saddle I've tried soaks up road vibe like the T4. Also most of us tilt the nose on this saddle UP a degree or two to find and stay on the sweet spot, but this might not be good for you if you use the drops a lot.

 

I've solved that problem with a cutout style saddle.

I use the Terry Zero http://www.performancebike.com/shop/Profile.cfm?SKU=16413

But there's lots of options on this style of saddle.

YMMV

 

This is a good subject. Good advice and suggestions all around here. Dhk is right, for starters -- you need to approach this from a saddle position standpoint before you do anything else.

A degree tilt forward helps some for obvious reasons, and a degree tilt back can work for equally intuitive reasons: sometimes, your body naturally rests forward on the saddle nose, and it takes a bit of a backwards tip to pull you off of your crotch and back onto your sit bones. Inching it forward a touch might be worth a try as well.

Work on a trainer is always harder on your crotch/butt than real riding. When you're out, you're naturally shifting, standing, moving forward, moving back, making constant adjustments to your position... in a trainer, you tend to lock into one or two positions and force yourself to hold for the next 3,000 strokes. Soft tissues suffer.

On that note, I second (third?) the recommendation that you NOT pursue padding or gel as the easy answer. General wisdom holds that for long-term soft tissue health, true support from a firm platform works better for most in the long run. The minimalist jobs out there -- the SLK, the SLR, the Aspide, the Aliante and Arione -- aren't just popular because they look cool.

Some swear by cutouts, but they're a problem for me. Cutout-equipped saddles tend to give me numbness faster than smooth ones -- I think it's the extra set of edges. Pinched-nerve and clamped-artery inducing edges...

The Arione works for me because, though it's thin, flat, firm and racy, it's got a long, broad horizontal surface that doesn't leave you straddling a thin nose with your soft tissues. It seems to support the pelvis in a way that feels more like sitting on a firm seat than a rail, which is what the Trans-Am feels like to me.

Good luck with your search... your genitals deserve the best.

 

All good advice.

I did have a problem with an earlier cutout, but I've found one with smooth inside edges that solved that issue too.

It's definitely an area where there's going to be many different solutions