by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Many questions have been asked as to how cycling potentially affects the quality of a man’s fertility before but what about male impotence. It is one of those cycling issues that retain an aspect of urban myth with riders unsure really whether long-term bike riding really causes sexual dysfunction in men.
New research from the School of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has been looking at how a bike saddle may affect erectile dysfunction. The focus of the study has been to look at how bike seats’ have an effect on pelvic blood flow to the penis and in turn whether there is a relationship with male impotence.
The researchers designed a study to precisely measure the pressure on the male anatomy as opposed to previous studies that had measured the pressure on the bike seat.
The question must be, however, as to whether it is in fact the SEAT and not the RIDING POSITION. Personally I suggest that it is the position that men have begun using while cycling for general use based on that of the road cycle racer
The cyclist of old sat upright on the bike and in that position the weight is where it is meant to be, on the glutinous maximus, the backside, and not on the penis. In the position used on racing bike and the majority of all modern cycles that is, however, where the weight rests due to the sitting position and not the seat.
I doubt that we have to spend tens or hundreds of thousands on a study: the answer is simply not the seat but the seating position and once we change that to the “normal” one again I am sure things will improve.
Once again the obvious is being treated like science of the rocket kind or that of surgery of the brain; it is neither.
It is our modern method of riding a bike, trying to imitate the road racers, that is causing us grief and not the seat though some of them also are not conducive to good health either.
Time to get back to the ways of old, as in so many other aspects too.
© 2011
