The Quest for a Comfortable Bum

Five-ish years ago I wore out the saddle on my bike and had to find a new one. The trouble with buying bicycle saddles was (and still is) that I couldn't really go and try them out for 100km or so; I had to just give it my best guess and let my bottom be the judge as time passed and the kilometers accumulated.

 

Accumulating kilometers between Roma and Surat.

Accumulating more kilometers on the BVRT last year.

My new saddle performed admirably.  Over time the fancy gel topping accommodated the specific shape of my bottom, reducing the need for padded pants and allowing me to jump on my bicycle in my everyday duds and zoom (or in my case chug) off for a quick (slow) 40km or so. 

A couple of thousand kilometers went by and, lulled into the security of a comfortable bum, I didn't give my saddle a second thought until, with nary a pop, the bubble burst. More accurately the welded seams of my saddle burst and over the course of a month or two all that high-tec gel escaped, falling out in gobs and leaving little pellets of gel behind me on the road.  Were I in a forest trying to escape from a wicked stepmother I would have had no trouble finding my way home but alas, this was not the case.

I persevered riding with my gel-less saddle, in the hopes that my bottom would toughen up and come to a new agreement with the residual foam/gel combination and we would all be happy for many more thousands of kilometers to come.

Bum-toughening rides on the suspended bike way under the M1 freeway,

and through Blackwater Lakes, another beautiful suburban park in Melbourne,

with a brief break from bum-toughening while I looked for birds on the Blackwood Lakes.

Bum-toughening rides in wooded wonderland beside the freeway.  No, that's not me, but that is the offending saddle right there on my bike.

In the interests of bum-toughening I even did things like say to myself "I will check where I need to go when I get to the top of the hill," thereby pedaling up a hill that I didn't need to go up at all.  The photo lies too, it's steeper than it looks. I have no idea why I wasn't smart enough to check my directions at the beginning of the hill.

Unfortunately the only this all this bum-toughening riding achieved was to confirm that bum/saddle compatibility had declined to the point that a breakup of the relationship was imminent, and the only option was to find a suitable replacement and start a new chapter characterised by increased comfort in the sit-me-down department.

Which brought me full circle to the questions with which I tortured myself five years ago: do I go with another gel-tech wonder complete with welded seams threatening to split at inopportune moments?  Do I opt instead for old-fashioned leather and wear it in until it fits my bum like a well-worn pair of shoes fits my feet?  Do I choose a plush, padded, well sprung bum support or should I start a new relationship with a lean, mean piece of padded fibreglass designed to propel me up hills at Tour de France speeds?  The decisions were all too difficult, the options too endless, the implications for my poor old bum too profound...

Rest assured I will let you know when the Bum Comfort Quest is resolved.  In the mean time I avoided the question altogether, committed myself to further bum-toughening adventures, and went for a bike ride.

That's better. Mostly.