A Case Study on the Importance of Saddles
Patient: 38-year old male with significant pain in the right gluteal / hamstring area. Athlete reports that he was suffering from pain in the final week before IRONMAN Lake Placid, stopped training to rest, and then attempted the event. At mile 6 of the run, felt sharp increase in pain, decreased strength, and pulled off course three miles later.
If this story sounds familiar, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me. As noted in my article about this year’s IRONMAN Lake Placid, I managed to move my completion ratio for 140.6 distance events below the Mendoza line. One wrong step while running seemingly had blown the back half of my leg apart.
As it turns out, well, that wasn’t true. It had nothing to do with running at all. In fact, it had everything to do with cycling — and, really, just one very critical component of cycling. One that I, a fifteen year veteran of our sport, and nearly twenty years in the business of our sport, had completely overlooked.
It was my saddle.
You’re probably asking, “oh, come on Ryan. Just how bad of a problem can you create for yourself with the wrong saddle.” The answer is this wrong, from my MRI report: oblique linear low signal right inferior ramus compatible with nondisplaced fracture. Adjacent marrow edema superior rami fracture appreciated. Relatively localized high signal within the adductor minimus and ischiocavernosus muscles, adjacent to the fracture suggest contusion or strain.
For those who don’t speak radiology reports: I broke my pelvis in one place, I had a stress fracture in another place, and I had a lot of swelling / fluid in the hamstring and adductor, along with a strain of both muscles. Go big or go home.
And after talking with my orthopedic team, we narrowed down the source of the injury to one specific item. One that I consistently ignored some of the warning signs of. One that I just kept saying, “oh, it’s just part of riding. It’s never truly comfortable.” One that I rode for mile after uncomfortable mile, and figuring it was all down to the price we pay for biking 4-5 times a week for months on end.
Again: it was my saddle.
Hindsight being 20/20, I’d say I first started noticing that the saddle was really uncomfortable at what turned into my fracture site around February — five months before the race. As I wrote in some of my articles leading up to IRONMAN Lake Placid this year, almost all of my bike training occurred indoors, with my trainer bike and Wahoo KICKR. As rides got longer, my discomfort increased; I tried different shorts and new chamois cream, but never touched the saddle (a Bontrager road one that came stock on the trainer bike).
There is a reason why a friend of mine calls me “dazzlingly incompetent.”
We don’t think of bike saddles as something that can go disastrously wrong. But, as a reminder: your saddle is really only one of three places where your body comes in contact with a bike. And if any one of those is wrong, the rest of your bike fit is a series of compromises. As it turns out, an improper bike saddle can go severely wrong; that pressure onto the pubic rami wound up putting a stress fracture into both ends of the bone. Then me attempting to run on it pulled the inferior part of it apart into a full-blown fracture — that’s when it felt like someone had shot me in the back of the leg.
Let’s not forget: I work in the industry. I have countless good saddles at my disposal, from the ISM PS 2.0 that was on my triathlon bike (and gave me zero problems during the 112 miles at Lake Placid) to the Fizik Argo on my gravel bike or literally anything else (like the excellent WOVE saddle pictured below). But it points to a much larger trend that we’ve been alluding to over the past two years looking at the World Championships bike count: we seem to have lost the plot on bike fit and technology.
Look through the bike racks of your next triathlon and you will see plenty of newer bikes with what can only be described as compromised set-ups. Whether that’s interesting stem or bar choices, or saddles pointed toward the ground, or athletes still not utilizing their aerobars, it all comes back to fit not being placed at the front end of the decision-making process. Fit has to come back to the forefront — the thing you do before you even consider what bike you might be purchasing.
Or don’t. And perhaps you too can join me on the sidelines, cursing yourself for not being smart enough to just change your saddle.
Photos: Rob Piperno / Kelly Burns Gallagher / WOVE Bike
PM me and let’s get you sorted!
some comparisons of shapes:
I would think a V8 would have solved, oh, about 95% of my issues.
All the literature suggests that I have a high pain tolerance and that I like to ignore issues. Which, well…
Impressive story, and one well told. Appreciate the effort! You’ve heard this question a lot, I bet, and you won’t be shocked to hear it now: why not try other saddles? I don’t buy “dazzling incompetence” when your ass is on fire.
Running commentary from my head during a lot of these rides:
“It’s not that bad.”
“You’re not that uncomfortable.”
“Moving around the saddle a bit while indoors is normal.”
“Suck it up, buttercup.”
“Stop whining. Nobody cares.”
“Every saddle sucks, you’ll be happier when you’re on the tri bike outside.”
One could also ask “why not put the triathlon bike on the trainer?” Because I didn’t want to swap from the thru axle set up on the Kickr to quick release, and I also have a nasty habit of ruining the dropout screws on QR frames on the trainer and didn’t want to set myself up for that potential snowball before the race.
Mind you the Di2 junction box on that bike failed the morning before the race so I had one of those issues anyways so it wasn’t like I actually avoided that problem.
In fewer words: just didn’t think it was that much of a problem. Until, of course, it was.
I would have thought the vast majority of triathletes have these thoughts? Is there anyone who does a 5 hour trainer ride without getting an uncomfortable groin towards the end of the ride?
Fair. I for one maxed out at 3 hours indoors but even at 1.5 hours indoors or above 2 hours outside I wasn’t really comfortable. It’s true that we think of saddle discomfort as a “necessary evil”. I did too, until I saw a couple of female PROs advertise the Bisaddle without being paid to do so. The message was each time “I thought saddle discomfort was just part of training and racing and then…”.
That being said, it’s not like I had done nothing to improve comfort before getting the Bisaddle. I swapped out the stock saddle for an ISM PN 1.1 soon after buying my first tri bike and thought this comfort level had to be good enough.
Speaking as someone who has used the same model of saddle since nearly before you were born, I have a two-part question for you: have you ever had a saddle that was comfortable, and why did you switch?
I assume these are auto posting when publishing the associated article. Can you please include the author in the post instead of just “admin”. It’s not clear who’s voice it should be read in unless cross referenced with the front page version.
Hi Nick,
Could you share a quick primer on how I would know what saddle shape fits me?
Psssst…if you click the link to the actual article, the name appears there
Primer on TT/Tri saddle selection:
Pay special attention to 3 areas of the saddle’s design: does it relieve your soft tissue pressure? support the pelvic bones? and prevent thigh rubbing?
Channel Width: The saddle’s channel width may or may not provide you with soft tissue relief. Too narrow is a major issue and leads to riders posteriorly rotating their hips to relieve the soft tissue pressure, which causes lower back pain, and loss in power, and a compromise in the bike fit.
Nose Width: The nose width may or may not support your pelvic bones - is it so narrow that the nose sits between your pelvic bones and increases your soft tissue pressure & discomfort? Or, is the nose width so wide that it rubs, impinges and/or chafes your inner thighs?
Transition: Does the saddle’s transition from the rear to its nose quickly taper to get the saddle out of the way to maximize thigh clearance and reduce the likelihood of thigh rub and chafing? If not, that can be an issue.
What would you say is the best way to find a saddle that works for a person? They are far too expensive (for me) to just keep buying them and then trying to sell them on ebay when they don’t work.
How do you know when the saddle is the issue and not some other part of your fit?
Good question. We at Wove do have a 30 day no questions asked return policy making the cost burden not quite so bad, and I provide a lot of our customers with free bike fit assessment over WhatsApp videos.
You just hit on my biggest fear. My bike was expensive itself, but I could spend just as much on saddles and still be miserable.
I’m just now really understanding what I need to do in order to ride in aero and I am very worried about holding aero because of potential saddle woes. I’m going to put my tri bike in the trainer and try and get fit and saddle right. My first race on the new bike is in May.
I’ve been considering the saddle rental program at Shop Now | Bike Seat Guru Online Saddle Shop | U.S.A.
It would be cheaper than buying and reselling saddles on eBay. It also supports a business that supports triathletes.
Will you have saddles available at Kona? I’d love to try a V8.