Help me find a saddle and a helmet

[drspouse]

My new bike is lovely and light but the saddle and my bottom don't get on.
Someone recommended a Selle Italia but they are £££.
I think I have this saddle:
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I also have an ancient Bell helmet and it's really out of date but I went to a local bike shop and tried on a load of Specialized helmets and they are all much too narrow - I have quite a wide head it seems! Which brands come up wide? I don't really want to order loads and have to send them back but that was all they had locally.

My old bike was a Trek and I liked the saddle a lot but it was a lot less "whizzy", much more armchair like!

If your old saddle worked for you just pop it on your new bike, who cares what it looks like if it is comfy!! I’m using exactly the same style/ shape I’ve had since I started cycling 10 years ago.

Saddles are very personal things, so what works for me wouldn’t necessarily work for you.

Also make sure your bike is setup right for you (there’s a good how to guide by GCN on YouTube). It isn’t just the saddle height and position but stuff like stem length and bar angle can all impact upon how you sit on the bike and cause discomfort on the saddle.

If you have a bike fit (well worth it if you ride a lot) once they’ve got your position spot on, you’ll be able to try a range of different saddles to get the perfect one for you.

Alternatively some bike shops have a range of demo saddles you can borrow to try out.

Again if you ride regularly it is worth spending on a decent saddle that you find comfy. Even when you upgrade your current bike - keep the saddle and put it on the next one. I still have one I bought for my first bike 10 years ago, its on my winter bike now but gets used pretty much daily for 6 months of the year. With that in mind the £100 I spent on the saddle doesn’t seem so eye watering.

I don’t have any advice on wide helmets. I’ve always found Specialized Propeo to be super comfy and light.

I sold my old bike sadly! It was also a Trek but ancient.
The local bike shop had a grand total of zero women's saddles in stock.
I think I'm sitting right as at another shop where I bought it (slightly less local so I should ring up to see if they have women's saddles before calling in) they made sure.

Can you contact the person who bought your bike? You never know, they might have swapped the saddle to their own "comfortable for them" saddle

There's nothing to lose in asking.

Ooh good idea!

Hi! I would recommend going to your nearest bike store I went to mine, Hargroves Cycles, and they measured which saddle would suit be best and it great never had a comfier saddle. And for helmets get an adjustable one then you can make it fit your head perfectly.
Hope this helps, Holly

Holly all helmets are adjustable but the ones I tried are all too narrow. They seem to adjust front to back.
My local bike shop has zero women's saddles.

Go to a different bike shop! I am a big supporter of local bike shops, but they do sometimes have limited stock/suppliers. I don’t ever usually recommend Halfords for anything, but the bigger branches do have a wide range of helmets. To fit properly it should not fall off when you turn your head upside without the strap on. As long as it fits, incensed cost will just give you a more lightweight helmet with better ventilation.

Saddles are a bit different, and you do get what you pay for. The saddle on the bike I ride the most is a leather Selle Italia which is around 20 years old. Rather like walking boots, you need to wear saddles in to the shape of your body. A leather/gel saddle is likely to be most comfortable, but saddles comebin all shapes and sizes. The size of the saddle you need is more to do with the width of your pelvic bones than the size of your bottom. Again, a big bike shop should help you try different saddles out. Cycling shorts help enormously too. Again, you get what you pay for.

I really don't have any choice in bike shops - I can definitely try Halfords for helmets but there are two tiny bike shops locally, one very close had none in, the other one only stocks the same brand as my really uncomfortable one - none of the ones on their website look any more comfortable. They all just look really narrow and painful.
It's not my sit bones really (where the shorts are padded I think - I don't wear them for commuting), but inside my thighs.

You'd be surprised how comfortable the narrow saddles are!

It's nothing to do with the size of your bum or the padding, its how your sit bones land on the saddle. If you saw my (spindly) saddle and my (massive) arse you'd wonder how the hell it works, but it does!

Shops that do have saddles invariably have a lend/try before you buy/satisfaction guarantee if that helps reassure? Because saddles are infinitely personal - as pp says what works for you won't work for me and so on.

If its the inside of your thighs, then your saddle is too wide. Ebay is great for saddles as people buy them, ride for a bit and then decide they aren't right.

DH and I have wide heads, and Kask helmets fit us really well

Thanks CMOT. Is that true even if I feel more comfortable if I pull myself back further i.e. onto a wider part of the saddle?
I'll look out for those helmets thanks.

It could be the angle of your saddle then as well, or that you need to just push your saddle forward so that you are sitting on it better. It does take a lot of fiddling round with

I agree with CMOT, try moving your saddle forward a bit. (Look under the seat but, it will be clamped to the base on rail, you can move it by slackening off the clamps with an Allen key). Just go 1 cm at a time. Make sure the saddle is horizontal too.

Great - thanks - I'll get fiddling. Hopefully will be a cheap fix!

The helmets in the shop were definitely too tight, though, it felt like having a vice on my head! So that's a spend at some point.

Did you adjust the helmets to their biggest setting drspouse? I’ve got a big head and really thick hair, and have never had a problem getting a helmet to fit - recent helmets hace been Bontrager, Giro and Met.

Yes, it's the width. Not the front/back length. The wheel at the back only adjusts front and back.

I always have to get a helmet from the men’s section. I didn’t realise I had such a big head!

One of my bikes has a blokes saddle (specialized) and it is dead comfy. Chain reaction cycles have some good deals on selle saddles just now, maybe worth a shot, I got rid of the selle one from my other bike for a good price so if you don't like what you buy you can probably ebay it

Met helmets fit my head very well.

Ok I've moved my saddle as far forward as it will go (about 5mm) and my thighs seem a bit better. I'll see how I get on tomorrow (i usually cycle Tues and Weds but Weds with DD is more challenging!) and then since my sit bones DO still have issues I'll see if I think I need padding.
Need to measure my unnaturally large head next.