an ounce of prevention

At last Monday's jersey-fitting--just after the screaming rabbit being chased by the viscious dog tore through the fabric of our serene little gathering--the talk turned, as it often does, to saddle sores. There are plenty of preventative creams out there, but they can be pricey. Here is Kieth Bontrager's alternative--lifted from his cyclingnews.com diary earlier this summer. Think of it as a kind of More-with-Less approach to nut butter:

Saddle sores are a bitch. They are not as bad as swollen, infected molars, but they are close.

If you are planning to ride a multi-day event and you don't have a plan to prevent saddle sores, you are setting yourself up for a serious quantity of extra suffering. These things are hard enough as they are.

Here's my take on how it happens. You abrade the part of your crotch that comes into contact with the saddle when you pedal. Small lateral movements are inevitable and they cause the abrasions. The chamois does a little to help, but not much, and in some cases makes it worse. If the abraded area is exposed to bacteria, it gets infected. Then you get boils, they get worse, and then you can't sit on the saddle. That can be a problem on a 150 kilometre day.

Notice that this is not a pressure related thing. You can prevent that by getting out of the saddle regularly. You need a saddle that fits you well too, and that takes some experimentation. But fancy saddles will not prevent saddle sores. It is much simpler.

Don't think you can do something about it after the fact if you get them going. That's the wrong way to think about it. It doesn't work. Prevention is the key.

Here is my recipe for avoiding them. As is my tendency when looking for solutions, it is not expensive to do and the ingredients are widely available. There are no ingredients from a bike shop involved.

Also, this whole thing is almost entirely empirical. I have not twiddled variables, or researched alternatives. There might be problems for some people, though it is unlikely. But it works.

There are two aspects to the plan - cleanliness and lubrication.

Cleanliness is a matter of cleaning off your crotch before you put on your shorts. I use antibacterial wipes. You might think you have everything as clean as can be, but you probably don't. Try them. You'll see.

Lubrication is simple. Mix up a large vat of petroleum jelly with some antibiotic ointment and some pain reliever. The latter is probably optional, but I use it because I always have.The trick to effective lubrication for a long stage is to use a lot.. Smear the stuff onto the chamois in a large quantity - three fingers worth, minimum. It should feel weird when you put you shorts on. That won't matter. But you want it to last all day, so you need a lot. That's why I don't want to use any expensive Swiss stuff. It would cost a fortune.

The quantity thing came from an observation I made at the TdF in 2000. I was walking around in the pits on a rest day in Courchavel, France with some German journalists, weighing bikes. I noticed a lot of saddles were glistening, covered with fat. I'd been playing with chamois preps for the TransAlp, and had moderate success with them. But the appearance of the pros' saddles gave it away. They used copious quantities of the stuff.

Other than that observation I have no idea what pros actually do to prevent saddle sores. But I bet they all do something, and I bet one of the common methods is not too far off this one.

The petroleum jelly is a little difficult to wash out of the shorts. That is unavoidable. If it was easy to wash out, it would be washed out too quickly by sweat and that would defeat the purpose.