Clem von Jones

I think you have an issue with your saddle or your riding position. Consider tilting the front of your saddle down about two degrees. Perhaps the shape of saddle is too high in the middle/center where it should be concave, or maybe it's too plush, or maybe it's too narrow to support your ischial tuberosities. Any one of those three problems can cut off blood circulation. Alternately, your saddle might be too low and your handlebars too high so most of your weight is on the saddle. That kind of riding position in combination with an inappropriate saddle can create the issues you're having.

Can you post a photo of your bicycle from a side view and another of your saddle?

fietsbob

30 years ago, while touring thru UK, I saw & bought a cartoon postcard, Image was of a family walking bent over,
with a caption reading " Enjoying our Cycling Holiday"

CraigMBA

Several years ago, I rode about 4,000 miles and six double centuries in a 120 day period. Part of the reason I could do that was by trial and error I got a fantastic bike fit, and from that got on a Bontroger Anja Elite women's saddle with a enormous cut out (I'm 6'4'), and those Endura shorts you mention.

They are not my favorite bibs (I perfer the Izumis, they have more compression which I like), but they have the best chamois for long days. Everything else is only good for 150 miles. Under 100 a day and everything feels the same.

The seat was the most important. I do best with one with the least padding I can get. The Anja with steel rails and a bigger gel or pad or whatever caused hotspots and wasn't as good as the full race version. Because of my height, I have the handlebars about 4" below the seat in the best of situations and don't spend any time on my sitbones.

In fact, I just went through this on the touring bike I built from cast off (free) parts. I went to the trouble to actually buy another Anja, which kinda defeated the purpose of the build, but if I couldn't ride it (and I couldn't with any other seat I could scrounge up), what's the point?

CraigMBA

This is a good point.

I got super lucky and went to a PT starting a few months before I restarted cycling after 30 years off. They had me do a bunch of core work, the first thing they had me do was strengthen my pelvic floor. The more core work I do (even now), the better my rides are. Same for working on my hip mobility.

I wasn't going to go there, but yeah. I could have wrote that, and concur 100%. I have exactly the same seat on the four bikes I ride on a regular basis.

The day after a double, attempting sex is a surprisingly fantastic delightful recovery activity. Your attitude toward it is a parallel indicator of your bike fit and pelvic floor health.

KraneXL

Numbness is a nerve/pressure issue same as sleeping on your arm. It does not cause ED.

noglider 

I'm not sure if it's related, but a few years ago, I had achy balls. It took quite a long time for me to correlate it with the cause, because the aching came a day after riding one particular bike of mine. My doctor told me to switch to a saddle with a cutout. I didn't follow his advice. I switched to a harder saddle. I had been riding a saddle with more padding than usual for me. It came to me cheap. The saddle wasn't causing any discomfort while riding. So sometimes, too soft is bad.

Carbonfiberboy 

Not. It's due to a decreased penile blood supply due to compression of the perineum and it does cause ED.

If you want to learn what causes ED in cyclists, at least in those who ride a lot, have a look at these studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12074400
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11531032
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11523016
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19009871It's commonly known by experienced cyclists that more padding is frequently more painful than less padding. Too much padding reduces blood supply to more tissue than just the sex parts. This is also a female problem. Preventing numbness and the resulting ED is very simple: Find a saddle which never makes you numb. It can be done. I have a riding buddy who did PBP on a noseless saddle. That's what worked for him and his wife. Everyone's different, hence the 100's of saddles on the market, all different.

KraneXL

See 3:10-6:30 for my claim. If you believe differently then I look forward to your comments and the response from GCN.

Carbonfiberboy 

These people are selling cycling. I don't really need to respond or comment. I already did. They are wrong, simple as that. I tend to believe scientists who study these matters rather than salespeople. The urologist is expressing a minority opinion. Had to do some looking to find him. The fact that he is, in fact, wrong is shown clearly by the studies which I posted and which you obviously did not read.

He is correct however in 2 of his assertions: that one period of numbness will not cause ED, and that many repeated sessions of numbness can cause ED. But then he jumps to saying basically, "of course this will not happen." Duh. But of course it does, in fact to 19% of the LD riders in one of those studies I posted.

It happened to me as I mentioned in an earlier comment and after just one 150+ mile ride with the wrong saddle, I couldn't get it up for 3 days. My dick was totally numb. It actually doesn't take too many of those to cause permanent damage, i.e. ED. My opinion, without scientific confirmation, is that greatly reduced blood flow to any part of the body will result in nerve damage there due to the nerves being oxygen-starved. Hence numbness. And in fact, that's what happens when we condition our butts so we can ride for many hours with no butt discomfort - but we like that feature of it.

And then this urologist says well, if you do get this problem, just go to a urologist and "get it sorted out." In my trade this sort of thing is called "job security." First he says that it won't cause a problem, then he says if you get a problem come see me, but it certainly couldn't have come from the activity which he says to go ahead and do without regard to symptoms, because, well, because of course no one would persist in an activity which might cause ED, right? Yeah, except they do and he knows damn well they do.

I suppose I should also call attention to the ridiculously poor cycling position of the cyclist shown in the video's cartoon. This is the sort of posture which causes BFers to ask about back and neck pain. You might notice that this posture/position is not exhibited in any of the road riders briefly shown in the video. His complaint of going numb in only 30' is a bit funny to me. I can ride my rollers for 2 hours without stopping or standing and not go numb. He needs to get his fit and saddle sorted before he needs to get his dick sorted.

It's all silliness in defense of the indefensible. GCN does a lot of that. They have their viewpoint and in most cases, it doesn't really matter. In this particular case, it matters very much. Reminds me of antivaxers.