Saddle Comfort Uncensored

After months of grinning-and-bearing the agony of severe saddle sores, Paralympic cyclist Hannah Dines ended up under the surgeon’s knife. Here, she provides a welts-and-all account of how to stay pain-free on your perch

"Like your guns, saddles should be smooth and hard,” decrees Rule 61 of the º famously machismo-drenched manifesto. Apparently it’s a sin to have more than three millimetres of padding, and switching saddles is uncool because “a hardman would instead cut a hole in it to relieve pressure on the delicate area.”

Think again, lads, because you’re wrong. Very wrong. And I should know — because I took Jens Voigt’s ‘shut up legs’ principle and applied it to my saddle sores. From months of riding in an aggressive position on an aggressive saddle, I ended up with labial swelling caused by impact injury which got so bad I had to have surgery. From my hospital bed, I wrote an article for the Guardian that got far more attention than was comfortable for a girl who generally spends her time seeking out quiet country lanes.

My saddle sores story was for several days the most read article on the Guardian’s Lifestyle page, getting hundreds of shares and comments. I had written it not just for fellow cyclists but also for the medical community who might then be able to prevent experiences like mine (which included an incorrect cancer diagnosis). The response was enormous; it began raining saddles — hallelujah — as well as silicon saddle covers and bibshorts, not to mention the dozens of emails from men and women who’d been through similar.

Since going under the knife and telling all about it, I have won a Paracycling World Cup bronze medal and am back to full training. When the fitness editor of Cycling Weekly asked me to write this feature, he suggested I include “medical advice from a doctor who has looked specifically into saddle-related problems.” But alas, that was a bit like asking for bike-fits to be free on the NHS or a Netherlands-grade cycling infrastructure for the UK.