Oh, and there’s a bit of a break-in period with that…

After a bad experience with what was supposed to be the best complex-carbo-loading-long-term-energy drink that was available, I learned:  Never use any new stuff on an event ride.  Event rides should be all about the event.  You want to be able to enjoy the experience of riding with hundreds of other riders and all the trappings that go along with events without having to deal with some piece of gear not working quite like you expected, or some piece of apparel being just a little smaller than when you tried it on, or some complex-carbo-loading-long-term-energy drink just not setting very well in your stomach in spite of the fact that it is supposed to be the best available.

So when Brenda saw a new saddle that she wanted to try I was very careful to warn her, “But don’t try it out on the New Year’s Day ride.  That’ll be in somewhat unfamiliar territory, with a huge peloton, and we don’t want to be trying out a new saddle then.”  So we did that ride with our old familiar stuff, and then afterwards I put on her new saddle since the next ride we were going to do would be a club ride with people we knew, on roads that were closer to our home turf.  Now here’s the thing:  Lots of new bike stuff often takes some getting-used-to.  New shorts, new jerseys, new shoes or pedals, new wheels, sometimes even new tires can feel different from the old ones, and it can take a couple of rides to break them in a little.  But there’s one piece of equipment more than any other that requires a break-in period:  the saddle.  In fact, I think with the saddle, it’s about 50% you breaking in the saddle, and 50% the saddle breaking in your butt.  They can be painful.  And finding the right one can be a real treasure hunt.

So Monday is when we went out for the first ride with this new saddle.  Smart me—it was a local club ride, familiar roads, familiar group.  Dumb me—it was a 60-mile ride!!  Now, you know how sometimes when you work out some part of your body in a new way, you don’t always notice the effect of that workout until you go to use that body part again?  Yeah, well, this was kind of like that.  She actually made it ok through the 60 miles on Monday.  But today was the first day she was back on the bike for the second round with the new saddle, and by the time we got to about the 30-mile mark, the saddle was winning.  Ouch.  She finished the 41 miles, but we had to get resourceful with a towel to add a little cushioning during the last 10 miles.  And now we’re going out again tomorrow.  So we had to get real resourceful and went out and got one of those memory foam seat covers.  Here’s hoping that works…