During my MD2020 ride, towards then end of our 1300 mile ride, I was in agony.
Now in the past, I’ve ridden more miles than we did. I’ve done a couple saddle sore rides, all of which took some riding to get to to get started and to get home. More miles in the same amount of time.
My past experience with longer rides normally goes like this:
About 300 miles or 6 hours in, my buns get tired and sore.
About 400 miles or 8 hours in, my buns kinda hurt.
At about 500 miles, my buns are just numb, but not painful, either that or I just don’t care anymore.
I’ve done a lot of miles on the ZX11 on the stock seat, then on a much better Corbin saddle. On the FJR, I’ve done a couple long trips, one to NH, and a bunch of miles to the EOM meet, riding during the meet, and back home, all of them on the stock seat. I have an Air Hawk to get a little comfort now and then but it was more for a change of pace, it’s not the end all – be all answer for me. But it made things a little tolerable.
Now back to the agony part.
During our last 200 miles, I was hating life. I have (3) leg positions on the bike. The standard pegs, the passenger pegs (which I use from time to time), and the newly installed highway pegs just for this trip cause I knew there’d be some time my legs would get tired.
During that last 200 miles I was constantly switching looking for some relief. I’d change pegs then in less than 5 minutes the agony and pain would be back. I could feel it down my leg, and in the end my feet were throbbing. This wasn’t good. I described it to Kyle and he said, my sciatic nerve(s) ware being irritated. He gets that sometimes from sitting in a car too long.
Man that sucked.
We made it back but I could not have ridden another 100 miles, no way, no how. All other aspects of my body were fine. I wasn’t that tired, and my back, neck and shoulders were good, which usually they cause me some pain.
The ride home was long, but we stopped about every 100 miles for either gas, or a bathroom break and that helped break it up. Even so, when I got home my rear was in bad bad shape. It’s hard to describe this pain, it wasn’t a saddle sore type of pain, no, it wasn’t plain soreness. This was agony from the inside out. I could feel it down the back of my legs, but at least my feet didn’t hurt.
After some digging on the net, and talking to a guy at work I decided to go for some massage therapy.
The lady worked on my gluts and thighs. She said I was unbelievably tight. But I think I got some relief. Actually, I was very sore the next day. But I felt like her poking, pushing and prodding did me some good, I think.
Sunday I went on the BMW ride, not a lot of miles about 250 round trip, but towards the end it was all I could do to ride home. I’m still aching as I write this.
Don’t know what the solution is, more than likely a new/better seat. Something that provides more support.
I even took some ibuprofen last night, which in the past has broke me out in hives, but I needed some relief.
I go back to the massage therapist tomorrow and I’ll have her work the area again. But I’m weary about riding for a while. The bike is calling me, but I’m scared 🙁
If you have any sure fire relief for sciatic pain, please post a comment cause at this point I’m willing to try just about anything. It’s not sciatica, because it doesn’t start at the base of my spine, it starts in the middle of my buttocks, and runs down the back of my legs. I have no back pain, none, only a burning stabbing pain in my gluts down my legs. Or maybe it is back related and I just don’t know it or can’t relate my pain to my back? In any event some time off the bike is in order until I get this figured out.
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