exercise setbacks and equipment rants. :P

I have deeply unhappy sit bones that are making sitting in even a regular chair or my memory-foam-equipped bed a difficult proposition, at the moment. So, like I do whenever something like this comes up, I turned to Google.

Google confirms for me, via pretty much every site on the subject ever, that women, especially those who have given birth, usually have sit bones that are spaced wider apart than men's -- it's a feature that comes with our wider hips, for the purpose of giving birth, which of course I've done a few times. I measure, and my sit bones are falling over the outside seams of the saddle, where there is almost no give, instead of over the pads meant to take them. Combine that with the upright posture my bike is meant for, putting more weight on the saddle, and I see why I'm bruising my bones. They may be plushly padded when I stand up, but sitting on the saddle is like sitting on the edge of a low seat; most of the padding gets shifted away, leaving the bones and the much thinner layer of muscle and fat directly over them to press hard against whatever surface I'm sitting on. I've got deep, specifically-located pressure pain, not muscle achiness or skin distress. Fair enough, yeah?

So, I need to look at wider saddles. To make sure I actually get a wider saddle, I need to know what my original one is. I look up my model and year on Trek's site; I have a 2008 7000 WSD. Note that WSD well -- it stands for Women's Specific Design. The bike comes with a very pretty Bontrager Suburbia FIT saddle. Armed with that fact, I trundle over to Bontrager's site to look up the Suburbia saddles and obtain specific measurements. This is where my jaw hits the floor.

Part No.	MSRP*		Color	Cover	Gender	Model	Rails	Size	Weight
276062	44.99	10	Black / Black	Synthetic Leather	Mens	Suburbia	Steel	265mm / 224mm	900g
276063	44.99	10	Gray / Black	Synthetic Leather	Womens	Suburbia FIT	Steel	263mm / 210mm	875g

Catch that? The FIT, the women's version, is slightly smaller than the men's version, contrary to all common sense and a fact that anyone can pick up in ten seconds' research on the subject. Bontrager made the decision to manufacture and market, and Trek made the decision to equip, on a bike meant to be specifically better for a woman's anatomy, a saddle that was smaller than the version of the same saddle provided for men, who have narrower-spaced sit bones. Here was I, thinking I just had an aberrant body, but it turns out, while I may in fact have an aberrant body, they also just decided to shortchange me and make it more likely that I was going to need a wider saddle than they provided for me.

Needless to say, any chance that my new saddle would be a Bontrager evaporated with my goodwill when I saw those measurements. Now I just have to decide on something else. And hope that by the time it arrives, I will no longer be in too much pain to sit on it.