Try this on your next bike ride.
Scoot on the saddle.
Many cyclists always sit in one spot. Off season rides or recovery rides are a great time to experiment with moving around. Scooting helps you increase pedaling cadence or power.
For normal cruising, you should sit back far enough for your sit bones to be resting atop the saddle. This gives support while minimizing pressure on the nerves and blood vessels that run through the soft tissue of your crotch.
When you want to increase your cadence for brief periods, scoot forward. Try it and you’ll see now much easier and more natural it feels to pedal at faster rpm.
When you want to increase your power, scoot back. This slightly lengthens your leg extension and puts you in better position to drive the pedal over the top of each stroke. This more-powerful thrust is especially helpful when climbing at slower cadences or turning a big gear.
As a bonus, scooting increases comfort by changing saddle pressure points and upper-body position. Get into the habit!
Yes, this is very good advice and I do it on almost every ride. When I get in the drops I slide forward as it helps you to get “on top” of your gear and cadence, and it’s easier on the quads too. And if you’re pushing a big gear on your turn to pull you can put extra pressure on the pedals and it will raise your butt off the saddle just enough to get some relief. I also slide back a bit when I’m climbing as it helps me push the cranks a bit harder, I’m a “masher” and 75-80 rpms is high for me. Can you remember the time when 75 rpms was considered ideal?? Also, periodically stand up for just a few seconds and it helps refresh the tush. I constantly move on the saddle and bars, nothing worse than going numb in the fingers and groin on a long ride.
When I first got into high performance cycling in the 1960s, a former Olympic coach told me that I should be able to ride for an hour at 100 rpm in a 70 inch gear. So no, I don’t remember the time when 75 rpms was considered ideal.
Moving around on the seat is an important part of staying comfortable on a bicycle. Also, as the article points out, moving to the proper location is an important for pedaling efficiency. The rider should be regularly, and often, changing seat positions. One common obstacle to regular movement, is a seat with a curved profile, which typically has a single “sweet spot”. Better, in my opinion, is a quality seat with a flat profile, which provides a greater range of useful seating positions. The flat profile seat may not have the “sweet spot” that the rider may initially find attractive, but it may be the most comfortable and practical seat, over time and distance.
I fit hundreds of riders to their bikes professionally when I worked at the Bicycle Center in Santa Cruz. Among my clients were California state champions, Nationals champions and professional triathletes.
From that context I would like to point out that while moving around a bit on the seat to stay comfortable and relieve any discomfort can make sense for some, if you watch professional cyclists you’ll see that they rarely move around on their seat unless they’re standing to climb or sprinting, etc. Most of the time they remain in one spot on their saddle.
The best event to watch for this is the time trial because you get a nice sideview of the racers. If you see a rider “scooting” you know 2 things right away: 1) they’re not going to win; and 2) their position is not right
The reason scooting should not be needed and is unwanted is that it’s inefficient. It should also be unnecessary to move around on your saddle so long as your bike fit is spot-on. That’s why most saddles have shapes not just a flat top. They’re designed to have a sweet spot where you spend almost all of your time.
It’s fine to move around if you need to, but you may want to investigate why you get uncomfortable and need to move around so much. It might be that with a bike fit you will find that you can sit still most of the time and enjoy your riding even more because you won’t be wasting so much energy.
Hope this is helpful,
Jim Langley
I am a ride captain in a social cycling group, and I’m a physical therapist. I advise people to move around on their seats often and to stand in the pedals when coasting in order to avoid a sore behind. This method works well for me—I’m sure I can ride 70 miles without padded shorts and only have minimal discomfort that’s gone once I’m off the bike. I agree that you don’t want to move around if your goal is speed. Moving around makes the work less efficient.