I've been riding my bike a lot. As the weather got cold, I put my bike on a turbo trainer and subscribed to Zwift so I could stay in shape over the winter. It took about 2 months to figure out that the stock saddle is not working for me. That saddle was fine when I rode outside. The occasional stops for traffic and the odd hill climb got me out of the saddle enough to hide the problems with that stock saddle. But riding on Zwift is another matter.
Indoor riding means my butt is planted on the saddle, sometimes for a couple of hours. I could ride outdoors on that saddle for four hours. But 90 minutes indoors, after riding 6-7 days a week, was definitely uncomfortable.
OK, time for a new saddle. It should be simple, right? Wrong.
There are TOO many options. But the first problem: what size should I get?
It turns out there are standard widths. It felt like the stock saddle that I have is just a little small. I went to the bike shop and the salesman had me sit on a memory foam cushion. Then she put two ball bearings into the depressions that my sit bones made. Then she measured. Yep. My saddle is too small.
Their selection was pretty limited. My choice: shop around more, or just try something. All of my reading about this topic showed that there's no science to this, no easy guide. You just have to try saddles until you find something that works. I saw no point in looking around for anything else when I would have no reason to believe that anything else is easier to decide is right for me. So I bought a Specialized Phenom Comp saddle.
Installation was quick work. I tried it today. It already feels better. I have 14 days from the date of purchase to return it. I'm going to ride a lot in the meantime to see if I want to keep it.
Update: it's now 4 months later and this saddle has worked well for me. The ultimate test is to see how it works for me when I go to RAGBRAI.
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