Male bike riders, does this happen to you? (Probable TMI)

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, I’ve noticed this phenomenon before, but I’ve never really known who to ask about it. Figure if I can’t ask the Teeming Millions, I don’t know who I can… since we talk about everything from thighs rubbing together to sex in public to lieu’s poop threads, why not this?

On extended bike rides, say more than two or three miles, I’ve noticed that my genitals become numb. It’s not a lasting sensation… a few minutes after I get off my bike feeling starts to come back. Within 10 minutes or so there’s no noticable change. Also… performance hasn’t been impaired in other areas at all. Tomorrow my my wife and I’s 12th anniversary, and she hasn’t complained. :smiley:

However, on long rides, it can get somewhat uncomfortable. For instance, yesterday I rode my bike home, a ride of about 6 miles. The feeling I get about halfway through is essentially like my penis and balls have fallen asleep, and it lasts until I get off my bike, or stop at a stoplight for a minute or so.

So, my question… does this happen to other guys too? Should I be worried about this?

If any doctors read this and want to weigh in as to possible reasons for it, I’d welcome that too.

Closing my eyes and hitting “Submit”…

2

It happens to me too, but I’m a woman. I always thought it was a woman thing.

3

Sorry, lel, didn’t mean to discriminate… I just didn’t imagine it happening to women too. Different equipment and all.

So, with this in mind, the question is open to women as well. :wink:

4
      • It happens, but it never happened to me. There’s a nerve down there, and pressing hard on it for long periods can result in permanent loss of sensitivity, although this usually takes a lot of time on a bike to happen, and is rarely permenent (it just takes a few weeks/months to come back). The reason it never happened to me was that when I bought a bike, I always removed the pathetic tiny seat it came with and put on a wider gel mtb-tye seat. The narrow seats are simply too uncomfortable for me, I have refused to use them for years.
  • And then I gave up bike riding entirely, until I could get a recumbent (probably a Bikee). Over the winter I toyed with the idea of cutting up my upright aluminum mtb to make a recumbent, but I don’t think I can weld aluminum all that great yet. And the cheapest decent recum costs like $1200–that I don’t got. I ride for pleasure you see, so I don’t want or need the “Tour-De-97-Pound-Pipsqueak” bicycle built for someone eight inches shorter and 140 lbs lighter than me. (-they make bike seats wider but not larger you see, so for a large-framed person, none of them are really comfortable-) I sold my road bike a few years back, the mtb has suspension and the road bike didn’t, and I hadn’t ridden the road bike in like two years.
    …
    And you know the sad part? A fancy $2000 road bike is just as uncomfortable as a $200 Wal-Mart one. Bike shop employees will recommend this, that and the other, but there is NO difference in the amount of pain they cause you. If you want to ride comfortably, a recumbent is the only way to go.
    ~
5

So, you find that the wider gel seats prevent that nerve being pressed on, so no numbness? If so, I’ll have to look into getting one… I’m looking to ride my bike more often.

6

They sell gel-filled seats, get one.

7

I tried the wide gel-filled seats – they helped, but didn’t eliminate the problem entirely.

And yes – it was numbness in the same general area, although the exact equipment affected is differen.

8

get a seat with a hole in the middle!

im sure you’ve seen them. they relieve the pressure on the nerve down bellow.

I have a special, as in wide, woman’s gel seat, and it has a hole too.

i thought i read someplace that this is a SERIOUS problem, or can become one if you ride a lot.

9

sorry… SERIOUS as in infertility,

10

There is actually a special bike seat that is supposed to ease this problem. The center of the seat has a hollowed-out cavity in it, and the two sides towards the rear are made larger, the idea being that your weight will shift to your buttocks and not sit on your perineum.

11
      • Lemme put it this way: on a scale of 1 to 100-
        -narrow bike seat (usually standard)---->5
        -wide gel mtb seat--------------------------->10
        -Bikee (recumbent)--------------------------->95
        …
        -Not to spam on one brand of recum so much, but it’s one of the cheaper ones around, and the only one I’ve had a chance to really try.
        ~
12

IIRC, it’s more serious than that. Impotence! :eek:

13

It has happened to other people. Hasn’t happened to me, even on rides of 120+ miles on the “pathetic tiny seat” that DougC speaks of.:stuck_out_tongue:

It helps if you:

  1. Have a bike that fits properly
  2. Wear a pair of padded cycling shorts
  3. Find a comfortable saddle (There are a lot of different models to choose from, some with gel, some with holes, some with both, etc. What works for each person tends to vary, but be wary of cheap WalMart style saddles that have little in common with quality road bike saddles.)

Of course. As someone who spent a buttload of hours in the saddle, this is not something that you should ignore. Changes should be made to 1 or all 3 of the above to rectify this problem.

If you cannot find any relief, your best bet may be a recumbent as suggested by DougC.

14

Cool… thanks for the tips, John (and everyone else too). My bike is already pretty well-fitted to me, so there’s not much improvement to be made there. However, I remember now that the mountain bike I had in college (now smashed by a careless driver plowing through a convenience store window) had a gel seat, and when I was riding that, I didn’t seem to have this problem.

I’ll look into what’s available around here, and see if gel seats with the depression/hole can be found. Everyone’s input is much appreciated!

15

I’ll second the thought on changing out the saddle. You have to get one where your sitbones are adequately supported but also where the saddle isn’t pressing on your perineum. If the saddle fits, try tinkering with the angle of the seat. You might be pleasantly surprised at how much just a little change in the seat angle can improve your riding comfort.

16

(Hijack)Dude, I think you need to find a better bike store and/or spend the right amount of money on the right bike.

In spinning class, one of the three brands of spinning bikes can’t be made to fit my 6’6" 260 lb body. The other two took quite a bit of experimentation. The 26" mountain bike frame I accidently found (and purchased) fits me like a glove. Find someone who can fit a bike to YOU, not the other way around.(/Hijack)

And to answer the original thread, Things get numb about 15-20 minutes into a spinning class. Standing and climbing helps to reshift things, and feeling comes back. Don’t rule out a set of biking shorts that are past their prime.

And I never have the same feeling on the mountain bike…I did have to replace the stock seat with one that wasn’t quite so Spanish Inquisition.

17

You may also want to play around with the saddle angle. If it is slightly higher at the front than the back, then adjust it so it’s level and try that. One of the more popular grooved saddles is the Specialized Body Geometry range. I’ve not tried one, but some friends who do 3000+ miles/year swear by them.

18

I would take a more careful look at your seat height and also the attitude of the saddle.

Cycle position set up is very important indeed in eliminating a lot of these types of pains and improves your efficiency whilst imroving your weight distribution - which in turn improves the handling of the rider.

You should be able to put your shoeless heel on the pedal and your reach should be such that your leg is not quite locked at the full extension.
You should also be able to back pedal in such a way that your hips do not rock from side to side, if the saddle is too high your hips will sway and if too low you sway the other way, opposite to the pedalling.
You will need someone to hold you and the cycle vertical whilst you do this, or you could try hold yourself upright by leaning on a wall.

Next, your reach to the bars - roughly speaking, you should be able to put your elbow on the pointy end (beak) of the saddle and your hands should reach the steering column at around the palm end of your fingers, on a racing machine you would also want your fingertips to just reach the bars too, the stem length being about the same length of your index finger, maybe a centimetre more if you are tall.

You should check how level your saddle is, it sounds like it is pointing up a little too much for you, point the nose down a small amount, just a couple of millimetres, try it and see what happens, and adjust a bit more until you get the best result.

Other things that can have a nasty effect, ensure that your pants and underpants do not have seams under the vital area, this might ential purchasing purpose made cyling shorts.

Many people just cannot get on with a particular shape of saddle, its not a question of how wide it is, its usually the way the saddle curves along its length and rises slightly to the beak before dropping off. Sometimes a saddle is too wide and curves flatly away to the sides in such a way as to splay the area yet put the weight on one part.

Price is not a guide to how comfortable a saddle is, some very expensive lightwieght carbon fibre weave types are terrible and should only be used for specialised events unless you have the hide of a rhino.

One of the best saddles I ever rode was only a couple of £, unfortunately it fell apart after a few years but then most saddles would given the amount of use that one got.

You will find that most club riders use fairly narrow saddles, my preferance is for a type not seen much except on the track, it has very little on the sides so it cannot chafe the inside of your thighs.

Six miles is not a long ride, so I suspect that you are not a club rider.
Folk who ride such short distances often make the mistake of riding in way too high a gear in the belief it makes them go faster and it imroves fitness.
If this is the case then I suggest riding a much lower gear and spinning, this help keep your nether regions moving slightly and will reduce the chances of numbness.