Saddle soars
There are only three contact points between bicycle and rider: hands on bars, feet on pedals, and butt on saddle.
No one ever says anything good about their saddle. For the vast majority, it is the seat of dissatisfaction and pain. Even experienced cyclists, once they find a saddle that works for them, do their utmost to forget all about it.
That strikes me as odd. Much of the information our brain uses to execute the complex operation of riding a bike comes to us through our hands, feet, and rear, but we try really hard to avoid thinking about what those contact points might be telling us.
There are interesting sensual experiences here that we overlook. The transition of weight onto our hands as we brake on a steep descent. The rhythmic juddering of the bike beneath us as we fly across a set of railroad tracks or a wooden bridge.
Many of these sensations come to us through the saddle. The up-and-down of a raised crosswalk speed bump. The change in ride texture from asphalt onto the smoothness of a painted road line, or the roughness of a coastal road that has been too long exposed to the elements.
And then there are those amazing, curvy roads that herald a flowing dance between your body and the bike, as you shift weight smoothly from left to right and left again while the road swoops back and forth. There are roads I could easily identify simply through their saddle feel: the southbound descent off Strawberry Hill, coming down South Street in Carlisle, swoopy Wilsondale in Dover, or the horrible pitted surface of Collins in Truro.
Bicycling is an intensely sensory experience, but we focus nearly all of our attention on the sights and sounds around us or the internal sensations of exertion: respiration, muscle pain, and thirst.
It’s sad that we only think about our contact points with the bicycle as sources of pain to avoid, rather than as a rich source of sensation, information, and experience. Not merely a pain in the ass, they are the physical interface between ourselves and the simple machine that allows us to travel so freely throughout-and in direct contact with-our world.
So on your next ride: instead of “saddle sores”, think “saddle soars”.