I’m looking for advice on how to resolve painful soreness with my sit bones after an intense long outdoor ride. I find that the soreness is related to the intensity. Last weekend, I completed a 122 km Gran Fondo (with 2100m of elevation) in 4 hours with an IF of 0.85, and by the end of the ride, my sit bones were very painful and tender and a week later, there is still some soreness left.
I had similar issues with my previous saddle, an Astute Skyline VT, which broke a week before the Gran Fondo. The Astute saddle was selected through a saddle fit service with a bike fitter. I selected a Specialized Romin EVO Pro (143 mm) as a replacement saddle given it’s similar shape to my previous saddle. Unfortunately, this new saddle did not address the sit bone issues for long, intense rides.
I find that longer rides at lower intensity doesn’t bring on the same sit bone soreness compared to higher intensity. With this most recent Gran Fondo, I found that by hour 3, I was squirming in my saddle; try to take the pressure off my sit bones. I was wearing 7mesh MK3 bib shorts with Assos chamois cream.
(For reference, I am 183cm / 6 ft tall and 77kg / 170 lbs).
I would love to have this issue resolved; I could look at returning the new saddle and selecting a new model; but selecting the right saddle seems like a daunting choice with so many models available and it takes a hard road race to actually qualify whether the saddle will actually be comfortable.
