Posted on by admin

The Best Bicycle Saddles for Vulvas and Vulvodynia

Bike Seats for Vulvas in mind! (And, as it turns out the bicycle police force.) Shocker, most of the saddles I found seemed market towards men, who experience serious nerve damage with noseless seats. But vulvas do too, so I’ve tested a few out with vulvodynia in mind. However even if your vulva is in tip top shape, your bike saddle could be majorly disrespecting your nerves and muscles.

In short:

  • There are seats that can work!
  • It’s not just the seat, but the type of bicycle (both in alleviating pain and making alternative seats work).
  • Try to get a proper fitting, adjustments might be necessary in the handlebar and/or seat height with the seat needing to potentially be further back on the rails.

[Cartoon: lady asking a bunch of dudes for a vulva friendly seat.. Real life, you are a hero. asking a bike store for a fitting]
As if bicycle stores weren’t such dude-a-ramas already, now I gotta ask for my vulva seat.

Don’t Stop The Party

People with vulvodynia have been advised to stop doing a lot of fun things. “Hot tubs, tight pants, biking or horseback riding, certain sexual positions.” They forgot riding a motorcycle, but that too. And this was before spin classes got to be the new thing to do before brunch, so maybe that too.

Cue, a change in saddle and/or bicycle. First of all, riding is joyful and it is exercise. Both are important when you have a vulva and especially if you have a depressing condition like vulva pain.

It took some tinkering to get it right, but I swapped by zippy road hybrid for a granny/cruiser that had a more upright posture, for better balance and less forward pressure (on that pudendal nerve) and tried out the following three noseless seats. I didn’t want to start out shelling out $100 or $200, so my experiments were with cheaper models to see if I was headed in the right direction. Now that I am, I’d love to try the Spongy Wonder, which could be a good option to get back into sportier rides.

Saddle Reviews

Winner – ISM TOURING COMFORT SADDLES

Good for weekly riding on an upright bike.

ISM Touring Saddle

MSRP $59.88

Can be found at ISM or on amazon here

Pros: Offered more stability and did not have the same issue of upper thigh pressure than the “bench” style, seems well made, also comes in a narrower option, “The Sport City”

Cons: Only suitable for upright positions

I had a little pain in the sit bones after a long ride that I never seemed to shake, but it was far more comfortable than the pain from a nosed saddle. This wouldn’t work so well for sport/performance riding, but was a gift from heaven to get me back cruising around town. When I sold my bike to a large dude, he really wanted the saddle to come with it. Sorry man, I’m never parting with this. (gif:Can’t stop me now!)

Runner Up – SCHWINN NO PRESSURE

Good for casual, occasional riding on an upright bike

Schwinn No Pressure Bicycle Seat

MSRP $19.99

Can be found on amazon here

Pros: Very affordable, and does the job.

Cons: Only suitable for upright positions. Either experienced a small sliding forward effect or pressure on the upper-upper thigh, where the leg meets the bum on the down pedal.

Small wins count. Better to get back on a bike, than not at all. Great for upright bikes that also allow you to recover from back pain. This could give you the confidence to try out other models.

Interesting, But Pass – Hokonui “Wide Big Bum Extra Comfort”

Is this a bike seat or an amusement park ride?

Hokonui Anti-shock Mountain Bike Saddle Wide Big Bum Extra Comfort

Try ebay? Currently unavailable on amazon here

Pros: Very bouncy-potholes be damned, zero pressure on the vulva

Cons: Must be able to lower your seat enough to accomodate the heightened position. Must not have trust issues…I bounced so much I felt like it was going to snap off, giving me nightmares of pelvic impaling. (To be fair, it never did.)

Must be able to lower your seat enough to accomodate the heightened position

To see it on a bike, check out this guy. IF massive suspension is your thing, you could attach any seat to this, actually.

Other ones I’d like to try,

If you have, please leave a comment!

For performance riding. Sometimes I’d like to go for more than a Sunday stroll. It can feel really dismissive when a doctor says “you should be fine biking, it’s not like you’re going to be doing triathalons.” Well what if I bloody want to. What if that is what I bloody do sometimes.

Getting great reviews, spongy my wonder! Hope the down-flexing alleviates the upper, upper thigh pressure.

For more inspiration, this blog post is full of ideas, and they are not as hard to find as they once were!

Sure, somedays I long for my zippy road bike, and how things used to be. But the upside of this is that with or without vulvodynia, I’m pretty sold on noseless bike seats forevermore for the preservation of my nerves and muscles.

Science

The vulva is not meant to be weight bearing, and hard-nose seats combined with clothing choices can sometimes lead to numbness, swollen labias, yeast infections and a whole shebang of additional issues y’all don’t need. Further explanation of the nerve set-up here:https://www.self.com/story/what-your-bike-seat-is-doing-to-your-vagina.

Why haven’t we heard about this until now, when 20/20 did a segment in 1987 on the dangers of bicycle seats for men. Color me shocked that this 2012 research paper calls out “sparse” information regarding women, but found neuropathies exist in women as well.

It is taking damn way too long, but science is finally looking into the relationship between cycling and pelvic and vulvo-vaginal health. A YEAR study showed having a less aggressive seat:handlebar ratio may be important to your health/preventing nerve damage

Take Action

Pretty sure a lot more folks should be paying attention, so feel free to tweet at your bike community

Yo SoulCycle maybe they could get on board with more vulvafreindly seats…tweet at them? https://www.self.com/story/what-your-bike-seat-is-doing-to-your-vagina

MORE BIKE RIDING TIPS:

  • Padded bike shorts may help alleviate new pressures with different seats.
  • Lidocaine. I wish I knew earlier that it came in patches since it was only prescribed as an ointment. (FYI If you are traveling, it may not be an OTC drug)
  • The “partial cutout” may be a problem – In another study, Dr. Marsha Guess and Dr. Kathleen Connell, who are urogynecologists at Yale, found that that more than 60 percent of female cyclists using nosed saddles reported symptoms of genital pain, numbness and tingling. Lab tests recorded lower levels of genital sensation in the cyclists than in a control group of runners. These researchers also report, in a forthcoming paper, that saddles with a “partial cutout” — an indentation or a small opening — may be counterproductive because they increase pressure on a woman’s genital area. F
  • If you are worried about people noticing your super rad bike seat, I’ve just said all of the following depending on how I feel in the moment:
  1. Yeah its just way more comfortable. Never going back! You should get one too. (The NYT was baffled why people weren’t switching back in 2011)
  2. It helps with nerve pain.
  3. I have an excruciating vulva condition. (I’ve gradually leaned into this one more.)
  4. (I haven’t tried this, but you could potentially put a gel cover over the seat disguising the absence of a nose)

Most important of all, DON’T GIVE UP! This woman’s story of finding a recumbent bike after 15 years of not riding that could accommodate her vulvodynia, fibromyalgia and back pain is inspiring.

Good news is, more and more of these seem to be coming into the market. Get one, and you’ll be ahead of what surely is a trend brewing. Bad news is, might not happen tomorrow, the only “women’s seat” I could find was this situation, where the punchline was not being able to say VAGINA.

Disclaimers: Talk to a doctor, one that wants to work with you. Make sure your bike and all parts fit properly. No paid endorsements and I did not have any communication with these bike seat providers.