Tenacious Sloth
Guru
- Location
- Huntingdon, UK
Seems like a crazy question, but hear me out..
Last month I had to drop out of a Channel to the Med tour in the middle of France due to a urinary retention problem. This resulted in me being sat in a Saint Flour hotel lobby two days shy of my 60th birthday with a catheter and bag, while the tour carried on without me and continued winding it’s way down to the Nice on the Mediterranean coast.
To say the least, it resulted in a very stressful couple of days trying to make my way home though France with the only french I remembered from school being “The little dog lives in the kennel”. 😂 And I can tell you from personal experience that you don’t know real fear until you’ve seen a taxi meter click northwards of €500! 😬
Thankfully, the catheter was removed last Sunday after over four weeks of struggling with a bag of pee strapped to my leg. Not nice at all.
After a month of zero exercise I’m keen to get back on the bike, but with an enlarged prostate am reluctant to sit on a saddle for extended periods until I know I’m definitely recovered. If the problem reoccurs I want to be 100% certain it was nothing to do with cycling.
Then I remembered the last time I rode the Tour of Cambridgeshire. For a large portion of the 85 miles miles I was sharing the road with a guy who had no seat post or saddle fitted to his bike!
I remember finding this astonishing, knowing that if I stood in the pedals for only a mile or so my thighs felt ready to explode. His reason for learning to ride like this was the avoidance of saddle sores. I couldn’t believe he rode the whole 85 miles without sitting down at an average speed of over 20mph.
So anyway, I’ve decided to give it a go. To quote Clarkson “How hard can it be?”.
I’ll tell you. Very hard.
I started on Monday with a three mile loop of my village and had to stop a couple of times to throw a bucket of water over my smoking quads. Seriously though, it was quite tough but I decided to persevere and did the same on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. A day off on Thursday was followed by two loops on Friday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Yesterday was another rest day but today I extended my route and did about five miles with no stops. It is starting to get easier.
The main differences I’ve found are that I have to ride a much higher gear or the pedals turn much too quickly and the riding position is quite tough on the hands and back of the neck. I have no spare fork steerer and so can’t really raise the bars To any great extent. On the plus side the bike does feel substantially lighter with no seatpost and Brooks B17 fitted to it.
So back to the question in the title, I’m interested to know if anyone else on here rides with no seat post and saddle? If so, how far are you managing to ride and do you have any top tips.
Last month I had to drop out of a Channel to the Med tour in the middle of France due to a urinary retention problem. This resulted in me being sat in a Saint Flour hotel lobby two days shy of my 60th birthday with a catheter and bag, while the tour carried on without me and continued winding it’s way down to the Nice on the Mediterranean coast.
To say the least, it resulted in a very stressful couple of days trying to make my way home though France with the only french I remembered from school being “The little dog lives in the kennel”. 😂 And I can tell you from personal experience that you don’t know real fear until you’ve seen a taxi meter click northwards of €500! 😬
Thankfully, the catheter was removed last Sunday after over four weeks of struggling with a bag of pee strapped to my leg. Not nice at all.
After a month of zero exercise I’m keen to get back on the bike, but with an enlarged prostate am reluctant to sit on a saddle for extended periods until I know I’m definitely recovered. If the problem reoccurs I want to be 100% certain it was nothing to do with cycling.
Then I remembered the last time I rode the Tour of Cambridgeshire. For a large portion of the 85 miles miles I was sharing the road with a guy who had no seat post or saddle fitted to his bike!
I remember finding this astonishing, knowing that if I stood in the pedals for only a mile or so my thighs felt ready to explode. His reason for learning to ride like this was the avoidance of saddle sores. I couldn’t believe he rode the whole 85 miles without sitting down at an average speed of over 20mph.
So anyway, I’ve decided to give it a go. To quote Clarkson “How hard can it be?”.
I’ll tell you. Very hard.
I started on Monday with a three mile loop of my village and had to stop a couple of times to throw a bucket of water over my smoking quads. Seriously though, it was quite tough but I decided to persevere and did the same on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. A day off on Thursday was followed by two loops on Friday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Yesterday was another rest day but today I extended my route and did about five miles with no stops. It is starting to get easier.
The main differences I’ve found are that I have to ride a much higher gear or the pedals turn much too quickly and the riding position is quite tough on the hands and back of the neck. I have no spare fork steerer and so can’t really raise the bars To any great extent. On the plus side the bike does feel substantially lighter with no seatpost and Brooks B17 fitted to it.
So back to the question in the title, I’m interested to know if anyone else on here rides with no seat post and saddle? If so, how far are you managing to ride and do you have any top tips.
