Introduction

GLORIA LIU recently published a magnificent article on Bicycling.com titled “Cycling’s Silent Epidemic” . This excerpt alone will hopefully explain the entire rationale for the project.

In 2023, Bicycling conducted its own survey. The results were startling: Nearly 50 percent of the female respondents told us they had long-term genital swelling or disfigurement, while 16 percent experienced ongoing numbness. Twelve of the 89 respondents—all amateurs but one—said their issues were serious enough to consider or undergo surgery. Women shared that they often rode in pain, cut rides short, or had to take long breaks from the bike.

If you haven’t read the article then please do. A huge step forward would be just promoting this article virally. It’s fantastic and exactly what we need to see more of. So why are we doing this project? Many women are finding well-marketed women-specific saddles just aren’t working for them and they are left lost thinking it must just be them. So we need to figure out why they aren’t working, what needs to change and how we spread the information and overcome the bike companies’ marketing departments who let’s be honest, want to make everyone believe that one size fits all.

It’s all a bit vague, isn’t it?

At the moment we appreciate it’s a bit vague. We want the project to grow organically with the input of our network and not be exclusively led by the questions Pedalling Perfection Bike Fit Studio wants to answer. The goal isn’t to get published in an academic journal - it’s to help keep women in the sport and prevent pain and long-term injuries. However, when it comes to the specific research studies we will be sure to be clear with our testing and data collection goals and our ethical considerations. If you want to be a participant in any of the studies that’s great, please keep an eye on this page and our socials. As the call for participants is a few months down the line whilst we develop our research studies and gain consensus on ethical procedures and required data collection. Right now we want to form a group of volunteers that can help us get to that stage.

Project Aims

• Review current resources and research.

• Gather data to determine the issues faced and inform further research projects - think of this project as a group of many smaller projects.

• Create a centralized resource for women’s saddles. This opening article is a good example of the resources we want to build on.

• Perform in-person testing as a means of data collection and education. Lots of ideas for this but we will let the hive mind decide how we use the time and resources most effectively.