The year 2024 brings exciting advancements in saddle technology, fit science, and expert services tailored specifically for women cyclists. This perfect storm offers a real opportunity for all women to experience pain-free riding. At Urban Pedaler, we share this vision and have built our expertise around the very tools that make it possible: in-depth bike fitting, a curated selection of saddles, and a team with an understanding of women's anatomy and the unique challenges female riders face. This allows us to guide our clients towards the perfect fit, leading to more comfortable and enjoyable rides.
Anatomically Speaking
In regards to saddles, the differences in anatomy between men & women are often over-simplified in common conversations as "women have wider sit bones", but it's way more complex than that. Also, the old chestnut "you just have to get used to it" is well and truly dead as the science has proven that we need to take more time to find different solutions for people that have different anatomies and different problems with their saddles. We're entering a new age, and the products available to us and the knowledge gained are making solutions more achievable.
Women have a shallower and wider pelvic arch which widens the area of soft tissue that is exposed to bearing weight when the sit bones are not supported properly or when the rider is leaning more forward - like in the case of triathletes or competitive riders in more aero positions. Women also have statistically 1-2cm wider sit bones than men, but we still see men and women at both ends of the spectrum of sit bone widths, it's just the average is skewed towards wider overall.
Translating Those Differences to On-Bike Experience
As is true for women, if your pelvic arch is wider and shallower, then rolling forward into an aero position inevitably puts more pressure on the soft tissue areas. This is even more of a challenge when riding in the drops, or with a low stack height on the front of the bike for a more competitive & aero position. This is when the saddle design can make it or break it for someone. Some saddles work for some people, and not for others, so seeking advice online for popular women's saddles is no better than trial & error. There are some great minds working on this conundrum and there might be some good explanations coming to light as research becomes available.
There is a great article on one recent approach to anatomical differences based on hip socket placement and how it might present in a way that someone can easily convey to their fitter: (Innie or Outie?)
Understanding The Complete Picture
Bike seat discomfort is rarely isolated to just the relationship between the rider and saddle, it needs to be viewed as part of the whole picture and how the rider is fit on their bike. Reach to the handlebars, height of the handlebars, saddle height, saddle fore/aft and a few other factors need to be optimised before we can look at the body's interface with the saddle more closely. As an example, if the stem is too long and reach to the bars exceeds the rider's ideal fit, then they can slide forward on the saddle when putting down power, inadvertently moving forward onto a narrower section of the saddle where pressure is higher, causing pain. In cases like this, recommending a saddle on sitbone measurements alone would not help solve the issue.
We use a saddle sitbone measurement tool here in store, and use it often to suggest saddles for people, with frequent success, but it is very hard to resolve ongoing issues for people when we're only armed with that data. For those riders with the seemingly impossible task of finding a comfortable saddle, we recommend a more thorough bike fitting to ensure we shake out any variables that have not been considered.
Communicating with your bike fitter
The first thing to do is ensure that your fitter understands the issues that you are experiencing, so open & honest communication leads to better results. During the interview portion of our bike fitting process, we explore any issues you might have on the bike, and try to understand them thoroughly. It's best to use specific and exact language when confiding with your fitter so that they understand the source of your pain. Explaining where the problems are (sit bones or genital area? one side or both sides?), history with saddle sores, chafing, swelling, or numbness can help the fitter narrow down possible solutions. Other information like what other saddles you've tried and whether you can ride comfortably in the drops is all very helpful information for us during the process.
Saddle Choice and Bike Fitting
During our bike fitting process, we start with a detailed interview where we ask about these saddle-specific issues and other things like whether you sit or stand at work, activities outside cycling, history of injury, etc. Then, a full 20-point physical assessment where we look at sitbone width along with flexibility and limitations of hamstrings & quads, core strength assessment, spinal curvature, shoulder & neck flexibility and more. Only then do we venture to the on-bike adjustments with our Guru machine. This is where we can experiment with reach, handlebar height, saddle height, saddle model choice, saddle fore/aft, saddle tilt, cleat & shoe modifications... all to get you as comfortable and efficient as possible. These adjustments are recorded and we can apply to your bike(s) afterwards.
Choosing a Saddle
Until recently, most bike manufacturers sold their full bikes with decent, but not very anatomical saddles. That's rapidly changing as manufacturing catches up with saddle science. It's not uncommon for us to toss out the original saddle as we build a bike and install a better, aftermarket saddle that a client has chosen during a bike fit. Many new parts and accessory companies are springing up in the bike industry helmed by people who have developed experience in ergonomics in one way or another, and have moved into manufacturing. The old saddle companies are having to play catch up and launch a few ergonomic saddles of their own to compliment their ageing, non-ergonomic models.
Overall, the primary design features to look for are a flatter rear end from side to side, ergonomic cut-out or recess down the middle, and a firm seating area - not too soft. Variables like padding level, width of the nose, length of the nose, overall width of the saddle, rear end kick up, and forward nose-tilt at the tip all can vary a lot between manufacturers and models, and here is where a bike fitting can be very helpful. On our Guru machine, we can quickly change saddles & let a client try several models in real time after we have achieved a good, ballpark position. This allows us to evaluate the saddle accurately, without major fitting issues affecting the outcome.
Some of the saddles we have the most success with are the Pro Stealth (pictured above), Prologo Dimension Space (pictured above), Selle Italia SLR SuperFlow models (various styles), Fabric Line-S and a few others. All these share some features in common, namely the features mentioned above. Some traditional saddles like the Aliante by Fizik have a rounded profile where the sitbones sit low on the outer edges of the saddle and the bulk of the saddle body fits between the rider's ischial tuberosities, compressing nerves, arteries, or veins that service the tissue up front.
Generally, many of the newer, ergonomic saddle designs work better for women, and we find that our female clients have strong, yet differing preferences for padding level, saddle nose length or width, cutout design, and overall saddle width. Getting a chance to try several of them after narrowing the field based on sitbone measurements and a conversation can make that process faster.
In our experience, here at Urban Pedaler, we see most riders (80% or more, both men and women) have sitbones 125cm or wider, which fit better in a majority of cases on saddles in the wider range, 150-155 wide from most manufacturers.
Comfort is not the only factor
Although we know that not all people feel comfortable communicating highly personal issues to a bike fitter or employee in a retail setting, we do see evidence that men and women suffer from many more ailments, and far more commonly than we think from riding. Sexual dysfunction, pain while urinating, numbing, there's a long list of common issues that keep people from riding. Even though a saddle might feel comfortable, it may be causing changes in bloodflow or focused pressure on areas that should not be under pressure, so we need to ensure that the saddle is at least supporting the correct parts of the body and should not judge a saddle on comfort alone.
I'm reminded of a circular and confusing conversation with a product manager for a famous saddle company a few years back. Their marketing material trumped their partnership with medical professionals and their superior design. Unknown to him, I had seen their saddles perform VERY badly on bloodflow testing on men and most of their saddles were incapable of supporting sitbones wider than 125mm. When I asked him about what design features were medically supported or based on testing, his answer was that "the pros like these". I was not able to get any other supporting evidence of their saddle design being medically or at least anatomically designed other than the fact that professional riders ride them. We owe it to ourselves to be a bit sceptical of marketing and take a little time to learn a bit more, especially in areas that concern our health and enjoyment of cycling.
In Review...
- Women have many choices in contemporary, medically-designed saddles
- Saddle issues and saddle fitting should not be viewed in isolation from overall bike fit, a bike fitting adds to the accuracy of your choice
- What fits one person well may not fit another in quite the same way
- Get a saddle that supports your sitbone width at least
- Try a few to get the right balance of padding and shape
- article written by Gabe Sullens, owner of Urban Pedaler. Gabe has been bike fitting since 1997 at Supergo Bike Shops in Santa Monica, California, and later worked with Specialized in developing and teaching the BodyGeometry Bike Fitting Course that is currently taught world-wide to Specialized dealers and practiced by thousands of fitters around the world.
- Paul Davis is the bike fitter at Urban Pedaler (in photos). He is certified in Guru and F.I.S.T. Bike Fitting Methodology, and is also a Master Level Body Geometry Fitter and an experienced cyclist. He’s been our fitter at Urban Pedaler since 2018 and has conducted well over 1000 bike fits & sizings for us.
- Urban Pedaler uses a GURU Dynamic Fitting Unit machine that allows us to find a position and optimize it based on the fitter's findings during the pre-fit assessment, a few pre-determined benchmarks for fitting positions, and feedback from the subject being fitted. Viewing the subject while pedalling gives us a deeper understanding of the outcome and allows us to change things like handlebars, saddles and other items very quickly.
