Saddle Sore

[Robert Helber]

Hi friends,

Recently I have been teaching this friend of mine, Scott, how to unicycle. He
has learned rather quickly and now is able to ride around with me in parking
garages and parks and so forth. It is lots of fun to ride circles around him
and show off and occasionally give him a tip or two. The only problem is that
Scott is always complaining about being really sore in the crotch. He
specifically complains about his testicles getting sore and chafed. This
bothers him so much that he has to stop ridding after about one hour or less.
He was using a CHEAP seat on my 24" Cycle Pro but now is on a Sem Cycle XL
standard seat and it still hurts.

I do not remember having so much pain when I was learning the unicycle and don't
experience it now. Are there any suggestions on how to improve comfort without
buying a new seat? That is, a cheap solution. Are tight biker shorts good to
wear? How about jock straps? Surgery? Is it just a learning thing? The unicycle
he is using doesn't give me the same trouble even with the cheap seat. Maybe
Scott is just a wimp.

Thanks for any suggestions, bob helber

p.s. I love to tell non-unicyclist that there are people who ride unicycles in
the mountains.

[Jack Halpern]

Robert Helber wrote:
|>
|> Hi friends,
|>
|> Recently I have been teaching this friend of mine, Scott, how to unicycle. He
|> has learned rather quickly and now is able to ride around with me in parking
|> garages and parks and so forth. It is lots of fun to ride circles around him
|> and show off and occasionally give him a tip or two. The only problem is that
|> Scott is always complaining about being really sore in the crotch. He
|> specifically complains about his testicles getting sore and chafed. This
|> bothers him so much that he has to stop ridding after about one hour or less.
|> He was using a CHEAP seat on my 24" Cycle Pro but now is on a Sem Cycle XL
|> standard seat and it still hurts.
|>
|> I do not remember having so much pain when I was learning the unicycle and
|> don't experience it now. Are there any suggestions on how to improve comfort
|> without buying a new seat? That is, a cheap solution. Are tight biker shorts
|> good to wear? How about jock straps? Surgery? Is it just a learning thing?
|> The unicycle he is using doesn't give me the same trouble even with the cheap
|> seat. Maybe Scott is just a wimp.
|>
|>
|> Thanks for any suggestions, bob helber
|>
|> p.s. I love to tell non-unicyclist that there are people who ride unicycles
|> in the mountains.
|>

There was a *lot* of discussion of this sometime in January and February this
year, so I suggest you get the archives. The discussion was started by my freind
Jeff, and there were plenty of interesting jokes too.

Perhaps this is a topic for the FAQ?

Stay on top, Jack Halpern

[Jeffrey Friedl]

Bob Helber wrote, forwarded to me by Jack Halpern: [re: painful crotch]
|> Is it just a learning thing? The unicycle he is using doesn't give me the
|> same trouble even with the cheap seat. Maybe Scott is just a wimp.

Or maybe Scott is just more of a Man :-) :-) :-)

I found immediate relief after I taped about two inches of bubble-sheet (you
know, the kind used to protect packages in shipment, and the ones that kids love
to pop) on the seat, making sure I got the sides as well. I used duct tape. It's
really ugly, but wow, it feels much better.

I'd guess it has something to do with the width of the seat relative to the
width between where the legs join the torso (and the amount of muscle and flab
in that area). At 192 cm (6'3") I'm taller than the average Japanese (and taller
than Jack, from whom I proudly received my unicycle). The seat was thin enough
that it was little-different from sitting on a fence post, and the first point
of bodily contact that was in harms way ended up supporting all my weight
directly. Ouch. The bubble sheets help distribute that.

Jeffrey
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey Friedl <jfriedl@omron.co.jp> Omron Corp, Nagaokakyo, Kyoto 617 Japan See
my Jap<->Eng dictionary at http://www.wg.omron.co.jp/cgi-bin/j-e