How to Make Bicycle Seat More Comfortable - 7 Tried and Tested Ways

Let’s face the facts - there’s not a single cyclist out there who hasn’t faced saddle discomfort issues, especially on long rides. Stock saddles are often terrible, and useful only to ride your bike from the shop to your home.

If you’re wondering how to make bicycle seat more comfortable, this is the article for you. We bring you 7 tried and tested methods, from tweaking saddle angles to getting a proper bike fit and everything in between.

Keep in mind that bike saddles are not sofas or office chairs. Even the best of them are only 3/10, comfort-wise. That being said, there’s a lot you can do to increase comfort, but just try to remember this sentence and manage your expectations. Let’s dig into the first way to make a bicycle seat more comfortable.

---

It doesn’t get any simpler than this. A $10 saddle will behave like a $10 saddle. You should come to terms with the fact that you’ll have to try out and even buy multiple saddles before finding the right one for you and your specific anatomy.

There’s no reason to buy the most popular or the most expensive saddle - these things are more individual than any other component on the bike.

An expensive bike saddle doesn’t mean it’s the best. You’re often paying a premium for a brand name and a high-end rail material. This represents nothing if you’re not looking to save a couple of grams of weight (read: not a weight weenie).

We recommend looking online for the general pros and cons of each saddle and reading reviews to find out how they approach your saddle discomfort issues. This will narrow down the list quite significantly, and you can just use common sense from there. Pick the one that ticks the most boxes for you, and hopefully, you’ll be good to go.

There’s a decent chance your saddle discomfort problem has nothing to do with the saddle itself, but rather with handlebars being too high or too low.

You can try changing the number of spacers below or above the stem to see if saddle problems persist, or if they increase/decrease in any way. How low you can go will depend on your torso length, arm length, strength, and flexibility - it’s too many variables to take into account at once.

Too low of a bar position leads to hip flexion that’s a couple of degrees outside of the optimal range. Your body will try to avoid it, which means your hips will move vertically while pedaling. You might also find yourself not sitting straight on the saddle.

It’s definitely a tough thing to spot by yourself, and it helps if you can record yourself on a stationary trainer and examine the recording.

When it comes to stems, there are a couple of things to consider as well.

Most stems are not flat and have some tilt to them (e.g., +/-7 degrees), which means you can alter the handlebar height and position further. Reversing the stem (positive tilt) will bring the handlebars up a bit, which will significantly alter your sitting position.

It’s an additional step you can do if changing the handlebar height isn’t an option, or if you’ve already maxed out on that one.

The same bike saddle usually comes in different widths, such as 145 or 155 millimeters.

You want to measure your sit bones to find out which saddle width is optimal for you. For example, my sit bones are 111 millimeters apart, which means a 143-millimeter-wide saddle fits me perfectly.

There’s no correlation between height and seat bone width. I’m 191 centimeters tall and have narrow sit bones, so there’s no way to “guess” your sit bone width. Just measure them, it’s a straightforward process you can do at home:

Choosing too narrow of a saddle means your sit bones will be placed outside of the areas you need to sit at - the saddle won’t provide any support.

Choosing too wide of a saddle means you’ll likely rub against the saddle with your thighs - you don’t want that.

Many modern saddles come with a short nose. It’s not a feature that only looks good, but it’s also useful because it puts less pressure on your sensitive areas.

It’s worth going out to your local bike shop and asking if they have some saddles you can try out for a couple of rides.

If you have a more traditional saddle, try getting a short-nosed one if you get a lot of numbness in your genital area.

Most people prefer a neutral saddle tilt (0 degrees) since it provides a good weight distribution between the saddle and handlebars.

But most people don’t mean all people.

Too high of a tilt upwards is likely to cause numbness, especially on longer rides - and this has nothing to do with saddle quality. Too low of tilt downwards means your sit bones will take a rest, but your arms and wrists will take the most weight and impact. Basically, you’ve just moved the problem from one area of the body to the other.

In my case, a professional bike fitter addressed that a negative tilt of -6 degrees is optimal for me since I often get numbness in the areas that should never go numb.

Loose cycling shorts will lead to skin rubbing against the saddle. You might be sitting on the world’s most comfortable saddle, but it won’t matter if you don’t get the basics right.

You maybe won’t experience this issue on a short ride, but a few hours in the saddle will show you just how bad chaffing can be.

Lycra shorts - while they look too much for some people - are the choice for cyclists for a reason. They’re smooth enough to touch the saddle without creating friction and generating heat

Tight-fitted shorts with thick padding are a way to go, and it’s just a matter of time until you purchase them.

Depending on where you live, a bike fit might be expensive and hard to get around, but it’s definitely worth it.

A professional bike fitter will address your mobility and any problem you’re facing on a bike - saddle comfort being one of them.

The first bike-related topic on a fit is addressing the saddle position. Everything else goes from there. You can see that if you get the saddle position wrong, nothing else will work.

If you’ve already invested a lot of money into your bike, then a professional fit is a no-brainer next step.