The seat dilemma.

For a few years now I have had a spiffy red "beach cruiser" bike. It's all  retro and awesome with coaster breaks. But when I got the bike, I was too short to ride it with out feeling like i'd fall over when I stopped.  Plus the saddle a.k.a. seat, was super uncomfortable. Then I got distracted and didn't think about my bike for a long time. It hung in my parents garage while I went zooming around in my jeep, and lived my life.

Plus I didn't feel like being a fat girl on a bike in public.. I was young and didn't love my body yet. I had horrific visions of being a bear on a bicycle, or my seat making my butt look funny and getting made fun of. I abandon the whole bike Idea for a long time. By chance one day I saw a larger lady out on her bike when I  was driving through San Francisco; I was taken with how happy she looked, and how amazing her legs were. Sadly I was still to uncomfortable to get on my own bike.

Then I got older and more happy with me and my weird body. I started to miss my bike. I really do miss the feeling of taking a nice relaxing ride, added bonus of it's faster than walking.
 For my birthday this April, when my sweet mom asked what i'd like for my birthday I responded " a new bike seat! A big squishy one, so I can ride and my butt wont hurt."  HAHAHA bad idea!
I did get a new seat and promptly had my dad put it on my bike and went for a test ride. I honestly still feel too short for the bike, but the real issue is the damn seat! talk about uncomfortable. I didn't even make it around the block before I decided the seat was wrong my my chunky butt.
I feel bad that I had to reject the seat my mom picked out, She told me she looked online to find it, her search was based on gel squish and size. Size wise the seat was good, however it just felt too darn stiff. If there was gel in that saddle it sure didn't do my butt any good, But I really want to ride my bike.

So now what am I to do? I ran off to the internets and googlesed it.. I remember some of my favorite bike seats over the years had little to no padding, and were leather. I took that info to the magic land of googles, low and behold I find the king of all leather bike saddle makers, Brooks. What beautiful saddles.. but OMG you want like $100 for a damn seat.. this thing better be worth it. I mulled over it for a while, did a crap load of research and comparisons between several of there pieces of leather fun.. and today I finally purchased it; a went with a B68S. lovely wide, and made for the ladies! which from what I can tell just means its shorter, since I too am short I should work nice.

It was interesting doing my bike research that it seems a lot of people have bike saddle issues, and in the same breath fat folks have a very difficult time with it. Bike companies make seats in all shapes and sizes now, but unless your a hard core bicycle person it is super hard to tell heads or tails of what kind of saddle you need. Prices have a crazy range in prices as well from $20 - $300.. And I thought buying vintage clothes were expensive!

I hope I have been lucky enough to find a good saddle for me. I have a feeling if this saddle is comfortable, it will be worth every penny. I can sense I will be doing a lot more outside bike adventures... now if I only didn't live on a hill.

Kisses!
Raven