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Can
we talk about your, ahem, 'saddle-nosed' bike seat?
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National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health advisory is aimed at
bicycle messengers
by Joseph Rose,
The Oregonian April 27, 2009
A new National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health advisory is
aimed at bicycle messengers, bike cops and, it could be argued, bike
commuters. And it's not the most -- cough! -- comfortable thing to talk
about.
Genital numbness and sexual dysfunction. There. We said it.
Alarmed by health problems arising from the use of standard saddle-nose
seats, the federal agency is trying to encourage the use of "no-nose"
seats among regular cyclists.
According to a new study (which comes with some pretty convincing
graphics), "NIOSH has conducted studies that have demonstrated the
effectiveness of no-nose bicycle saddles in reducing pressure in the
groin and improving the sexual health of male bicycle patrol police
officers."
Figure 1. Nerves
and arteries for the genitals (shown in green) compressed under the
traditional saddle nose. The blue region represents the contact areas
on the sit bones. The yellow region represents the pubic bone. The
pelvis is shown in the side view.
Figure 2. Example of pressure measured on
a
traditional saddle with a protruding nose. The white box shows the
groin region. The blue color is the lowest pressure, followed by green,
yellow, orange, and red (highest pressure). This saddle has a cut-out
hole as shown by the thinner dark outline of the saddle.
About 40,000 public-safety workers across the U.S., including police,
security staff and emergency medical service personnel, ride bicycles
as part of the job. Many have reported problems in that area. We won't
get into the details.
But to examine the benefit of saddles without a protruding nose, NIOSH
had bicycle police officers from five metro areas use no-nose seats on
their bikes for six months. After the trial period, only three of the
90 men returned to a traditional seat.
The other day on the Shift bicycle e-mail list, a jeans-wearing
Portland rider named "Chris" posted a message titled "My crotch,"
asking for advice on shopping for biking pants.
"No pair of my jeans has ever died a death other than the crotch
wearing out," he wrote. "Loose or tight, Levi's or Target brand, I have
never had a pair of jeans that doesn't wear out where the upper inner
thigh meets the leather/pleather/plastic of my bike seat long before
the rest of the jeans are in any way distressed."
Maybe, just maybe, the problem is the saddle, not the jeans.
Yet another argument for comfort over cool.
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