The padding, it did nah-thing!

So, I rode to work and back yesterday and again today. Covered 63km in two days - not too bad for an old codger who hasn't done a bike ride longer than a few km since I was in my 20's!

However, I made a pretty big mistake yesterday setting up the bike - I didn't test!

I put the new seat on with the taller post, added an old t-short for padding and oiled the chain and gears. The bike ran better, the increased height helped but needed to be higher. Biggest issue? The new seat is smaller, narrower and worst of all - made of a harder compound than the original! I didn't realise because I didn't test yesterday, but I realised my mistake before I even reached the end of our driveway - and it's a short driveway! The t-shirt basically did nothing for me.

Rode in to work, scrounged around afterwards for anything else I could use for padding and wrapped it on with tape. It didn't help much, but was a slight improvement for the ride home.

Interestingly, my time kind of improved. Yesterday the ride there was 1 hour 11 minutes in the morning, then 1 hour 18 minutes on the way home (hotter, more humid and more traffic to deal with). Plus there is one nice long downhill stretch on the way to work, which translates into a horrible uphill stretch on the way home - so a longer time on the return journey is expected. The interesting part is today my time was 1 hour 14 minutes there (bit longer, with the harder and more uncomfortable seat, plus the wear on the body from not recovering from the previous day's ride) but my time home was also 1 hour 14 minutes. Which means that after three previous rides I was able to shave four minutes off my return journey, even with the uncomfortable seat.

After I got home I did another swap - kept the new taller post (and increased the height again), put the original wider seat back on and added two layers of foam padding, with a layer of plastic to try and keep the sweat off and help the foam last a bit longer. This time I took it for a test ride after completing the adjustments and it feels a lot better.

Not "good", but better. Might need to look into gel padded seats or something in the future, depending on what is available in my budget range. Tomorrow morning's ride should be enlightening. Is the new padding sufficient, or is it still too hard?