Yes!

The hidden answer after that is, as long as they fit you.

For a very long time women were lucky to have various types of moderate level shorts.  There has been a few companies that come to mind that have been doing women’s cycling shorts well. These companies are : Pearl Izumi, Giordana, Sugoi, and Sheebeast.

Even with these brands, for one reason or another I’ve still worn about 50-75% of the time, guys shorts.   One of those large reasons are bib shorts, which is another topic in its own, I love them and not one company has made a good women’s design bib.  This has left me wearing guys bibs.  Other reasons are team sponsorship, right now the shops team kit are guys bibs, which is fine with me.

Reasons Not to Wear Guys Shorts

Length of chamois.  The pad/chamois goes high on guys shorts as they have more “package.” This freaks some women out as it comes well in front of the pubic bone.
Chamois size.  Remember that whole women’s design?  That goes with shorts too.  Women tend to need wider chamois in their shorts.  Just make sure the chamois doesn’t end too quickly for you or end where the saddle will rub.  That will leave you with several saddle sores.
Inseam length.  Companies tend to put a shorter inseam on women’s shorts compared to men’s.  This is another reason that I wear guys, I have long legs and the 6″ inseam on girls shorts are just too short normally.

Recommended Guys Shorts/Bibs to Try

Bontrager RXL
My go to shorts for the past year since I found them.  They have different materials through out the short to help with compression and the chamois is made to mate with their inForm saddles.

Gore Power Bib
– One of my new favorites if you read my article a couple days ago.  One note, do NOT get the Men’s Xenon bibs as the chamois has a break in the middle.  Can you say “camel toe?”

Final Thoughts

Don’t let your local bike shop confuse you, your favorite pair of shorts are two fold.  The first is the dressing room test, is it comfortable?  The second is to make sure it fits well on your favorite saddle.  Seams away from the edge of your saddles and that the chamois doesn’t “fold” in half and start pushing up on soft tissues.

Men’s or women’s : who cares as long as it fits?

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Originally I really thought the saddles were a joke, we would try them out on a few bikes and see what happens.  The women and triathletes fell in love.  All the pressure from the frontal soft tissue was separated back into your two sit bones, where the weight belongs!  Women were able to get into the aero position or drops of the handlebars without cutting off circulation.

This saddle is still towards the end of the saddles I automatically go through in my fit process.  I think there is a need for them, but find they can be too wide and long term will be modifying the shell of the saddle so not to hit the groin or tendons of the inside leg.  Soon the saddle will go on a personal bike of mine so I can give you a true review.

Do you know any women using this seat? If so, what are their thoughts and feelings?  Where do they feel pressure, if any?

Initial Feel

The very first feeling of the saddle is the firm, yet padded support.  This is a good feeling as I don’t like a saddle that I sink into. If you sink too much into a saddle your sit bones are no longer holding you up and the soft tissues are left holding you up.  This saddle hasn’t seen more than an hour and a half of consistent ride time so we can only tell how the padded feeling holds up.

The “pressure relief channel” seems to work so far.  It isn’t a cut out so if I rock into the drops I can feel pressure on my soft tissue areas but to this point there has been no numbness or pain when this pressure happens for an extended amount of time.

Look & Design

The saddle is an eye catcher.  Subtle enough, but if someone walks close enough to see the top of your saddle they will stop and ask, “WHAT?!“  This exact story has happened to me with everyone that has seen the saddle.  My only worry about the eye catching colors are they will bleed over time into my white bib shorts.

Closing Thoughts

Sitting initially on this saddle I didn’t think “this is the one,” but that never has happened before with any of my favorite saddles. There are always fine tuning with the bike fit and trying different angles and fore/aft of the saddle.  BUT I didn’t sit on this saddle and feel horrible pain, nor did I feel pain after 25 miles.  The jury is still out on this saddle but I will check back with you as the fit is modified and more miles are logged.

fi’zi:k knows saddles.  They are one of the top selling road saddles for guys that I’ve seen, among Selle Italia and such.  They have one womens saddle that has been on the market for some years called the Vitesse.  I tried riding this saddle for a while 2 years back, and suffered.  My soft tissues needed a “cooter hole”  or indention, or something that the Vitesse did not have.  I quickly swapped saddles back and continued on with life.

Now there is a new saddle from fi’zi:k called Vesta. They are marketing this with a “pressure relief channel” or a cooter hole.  That comfortable place to put your soft tissues out of pressure and harm. Other than this, the saddle is the same shape as the prior model I spoke about, the Vitesse.   The base price is $129.99, within range of most all fi’zi:k saddles, and higher end Terry saddles as well.

I hope to land one of these in my hands during the long, boring and painful base miles to see how their “pressure relief channel” really holds up.

There are many different TYPES of saddles. I could possibly take the leap and say there are as many TYPES of saddles as there are types of bicycles.

Glancing quickly over at Bontrager, WTB and Terry Bicycles here are the basic types of saddles these large companies design, stock and feel confident enough in the amount of people needing to buy them.

Bontrager :

InForm “racer type” series
Sport series with designed padding and cut out
Approved series is your basic
Commuter series has weather resistant material and gel
Boulevard series, a hybrid style
Suburbia series, wider than above for less distance
Cruiser series, belongs on your beach bike or a tractor
Kids Series

Terry Bicycles:

Women’s Performance
Women’s All Around
Women’s Touring
Women’s Recreational

WTB:

Recreational
Performance
Racing

With all these saddles where do you start? Let me try to put it in more basic terms…

The length of time you’ll be spending on the saddle is important, but also working up the mileage slowly is important.  My rear is used to sitting on something hard, so sitting on a harder saddle is more comfortable to me as I don’t sink into it after 2 hours on the bike like I would on a more padded seat.
Soft, wide saddles are for the recreational rider that normally owns a Cruiser or Comfort Hybrid of some sort.  Their trip distance will be <10 miles and at a slower pace.  The width can cause chafing as it pushing your legs apart, and the padding can break down with age. If you are spending more continuous time on the saddle you may start sinking down into the padding and your soft tissues will be holding you up instead of your sit bones.  If your distance or time picks up look for a narrower, slightly denser padded, seat.

Firmer, recreational saddles are the most popular when it comes to family and mountain bikes.  Normally they will have a well positioned split in the middle towards rear of the seat. The padding is dense so you won’t sink in for awhile, but as you push your mileage make sure this saddle doesn’t sag in the middle like a hammock.

Light, firm, performance saddles are where most women find the most fight when trying to find the right one.  Part of this is fitting and the woman’s anatomy and soft tissue areas.  As we try to get less upright and rock forward we push our soft tissues into the front of the seat.  Finding the seat that feels comfortable in the back but doesn’t make painful issues is hard.  Every woman is made different and the woman that is looking for this level of saddle probably rides a lot and wants to be aggressive in their fitting.

Other Notes:

Make sure a shop takes time to situate the seat to your liking.  The cut out should eliminate many aches from the front, soft, tissues.  The wider, firmer, area in the back should be contacting your sit bones comfortably with no seams or stitching.

Next up in our series I will be talking about the new way of thinking on measuring your sit bones to aid in finding the right seat.