We covered eighteen miles without a break today riding the Crestridge saddle. (More on that later) We also booted for the first time this year, and that went great! She as usual showed no interest in water until about mile fifteen (a three mile improvement). We did three loops, A loop out, A loop back, and then swung onto B. We made very good time on B (38 minutes). Once back to the trailer she nibbled at her feed ration (Funder it is Hubbard Feeds Life Phase / Performance). She mostly just wanted to stand still and google at the goings on at the day parking area. We are having limited success with the home-made version of Horse Quencher. But yes, she does like the real deal in the apple flavor, a lot. Of course I'm out of it now. We have a pack of root beer flavored, for some reason I can't imagine that appealing to a horse, but it must, or they wouldn't make it.
We think we've figured out a fix for the first two problems with the Euro. Half chaps/ fleece covers should deal with my leg chafing. The rivet problem should also be resolved with the covers + LSEGH gently hammered down the offending rivet so it is nice and smooth now. BUT WE HAVE A MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM. Men please poke your fingers in your ears, cover your eyes and sing La la la, la la laaaaaaaaaaaah, and skip over this part. I rode the Euro two hours yesterday, mostly slow, and felt like I couldn't get "the tender parts if you know what I mean" off the darned rise, it just felt like it was constantly rubbing. I was so sore last night that I was honestly thinking I'd need an ice pack, felt like a rug burn, where you don't EVER EVER EVER want a rug burn. Mostly on the left, but a little on the right. LSEGH got out the two saddles and a measuring tape trying to figure out where the differences lie. The seats are the same seat area (10 inches or so on the inside) 15 inch full measurement seats. He looked at the rise on my Crestridge which I'm very comfortable in, and there just isn't that much difference. I would not call my Euro a flat seat though if I were describing it. I wondered if they built it on the trail tree due to how wide she is? I wrote the owner of Specialized to see if he had any ideas on a fix. More troubling when you feel the seat you can feel two seams of some sort standing up under the fleece. On the right it is nearer the crease of my leg, but on the left...guess where? RIGHT UNDER THE MISERABLE TENDER PARTS. So would a leather seat fix this? If so....Aarene...shoot me a price on your used one. My man is taking the seat off today to see what if anything can be done without altering the integrety of anything to eliminate that seam, crease, or whatever it is ! I hope we can figure it out and fix it. I love the Crestridge it fits me great, but it would be so nice to handle the lighter saddle, and ten pounds off her back is ten pounds less for her to haul up each and every hill. The Euro is just BEAUTIFUL and I literally bawled on myself for a moment this morning, and then said to heck with it and rode my horse instead. (Funder, you be good and I will not draw a cartoon of me sprawled out with a ice pack on my...).
"All I want is a good nights sleep."
Ooooh you poor thing, that sounds miserable. Try some bicylists' goo? I have the Butt'r because believe it or not it has the least ridiculous name, at least from the bike store where I found it! My tender bits are ok but my poor fat thighs get chafed, and the ridiculous cream seems to help.
ReplyDeletere: the feed - hmmm, I have something similar that I give D as a treat, and she turned up her nose at it at the lunch break too. Maybe I'll get a bag of delicious gooey cheap sweet feed. No horse can resist molasses-y sweet feed, right?
Addendum: The ridge in the seat. So I took the screws out of the wool seat, and pullet it off. Where the seat is pieced together to form the seat there are two seams. One of them you can "feel" the ridge. It is very slight, but evident at various angles. On the other side where it is pieced together I don't feel that. So I think I'm going to have to try a leather seat. The fleece also gets ridges if it wrinkles so after taking it off and putting it back I have a "new" wrinkle that would be under my thigh. So I may be needing a leather seat, assuming there are not seams to be felt on those. I had originally ordered one but it was backordered so I'd canceled it thinking the fleece would be fine. I lengthened my leathers another inch, and though I thought I'd put the leathers in the front position, I had not. I had them in the center holes, so now they are moved forward another inch. I doubt someone with less sensitive skin would even feel that little ridge...but me, being me, I do.
ReplyDeleteFleece leather covers should be here on Monday or Tuesday. I have resigned myself to the idea that I'll not have my bugs worked out by Chicken Chase. ~E.G.
A couple of thoughts on the saddle stuff:
ReplyDelete1) Yep, move your leathers all the way forward. When you first mentioned your problem with tipping forward, and how you had your leathers set as far back as possible, that seemed a bit counter-intuitive. If your legs are too far back, your upper will tip forward. So move those all the way up.
2) Do a "chapstick" test on the seat. Place a tube of chapstick on the seat and see which direction it rolls. Toward the front? I'm guessing since you mentioned the saddle seems a bit too wide, that the entire thing is tipping forward (down) in the front, which is causing a "delicates" issue. Might try padding up the front more, or moving the shims around to compensate.
Hope something works out!
~C !
ReplyDeleteThat was very insightful thinking. As soon as the torrential downpours cease I'll saddle her up and try this. It makes sense if there is a little too much tilt, that my pelvis will want to slip forward and it probably wouldn't take much. I moved the stirrups forward last night as I had already thought of that one, and measured my leather length on my old saddle and matched it on this one as closely as I could. For some reason the sheepskin is wanting to "wrinkle" near a seam and is creating a firm little ridge under there too. We took it off and tried to remedy that, but can't seem to get them all smoothed out. I thought about getting some very thin neoprene to put under the sheepskin to fill it out more and draw out the wrinkles that way. Thanks for the thoughts, it may prove to be the thing. Tune back in when the sun shines and I'll let you all know!
EG, Wow, that problem sounds painful! But you have some good ideas to try and fix it. Once, when my riding lessons were very, very strenous, my "nether parts" got very painful and I resorted to buying several pairs of bicycle shorts to wear under my breeches (lovely!) but it helped. I hope you get this sorted out and comfortable again!
ReplyDeleteYou may want to use Vaseline until you get the kinks worked out. Messy, but worth it.
ReplyDelete