Choosing Your Bike Seat for Health and Performance

According to Medical News Today men everywhere are curious about the effect that different bicycle seats can have on their biking performance but are unaware that it can also affect performance aspects of their lives that are completely unrelated to biking.

An issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine studied the effects of different bike saddles on ninety biking policemen around the country.

Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of the Sexual Medicine Program at Alvarado Hospital, stated in an interview that “For the first time, [they] have a prospective study of healthy policemen riding bikes on the job, using wider, no-nose bike saddles for six months. Not only did their sensation improve, their erectile function also improved. Changing saddles changed physiology.”

The study evaluated the officers both before and six months after the study began and found that the wider-set, nose-less bike seats relieved the perineal region of unnecessary pressure known to cause desensitization and numbness. A majority of the ninety subjects continued use of the no-nose bike seat after the study was completed.