PORTLAND, OR — A local 36-year-old software developer purchased a new mountain bike Saturday afternoon and has, in the four days since, found himself in what he described Wednesday as “an increasingly complicated relationship” with the saddle.
You own nine spatulas and all of them are slightly melted. We can help: Stuff to Buy Before Anyone Sees Your Kitchen
The developer, who has not owned a bicycle since he was fourteen, said he had not anticipated the specific nature of the sensation.
“It’s — I don’t want to make this weird,” he said, standing beside the bike in his driveway. “But it’s, like, a little more there than I expected. It’s just kind of sitting on you. And you’re sitting on it. And you’re both doing your best. And it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s actually — it’s honestly kind of great.”
He paused.
Brought to you by people who also sell the "Time Travel Sucks" tee.
“I don’t know what to do with that information,” he added.
The developer said the sensation had not registered on his first ride, a short loop around his neighborhood. It had, however, become “impossible to ignore” during a longer ride Monday evening through Portland’s Forest Park, during which he had, per his own account, become “increasingly aware of the saddle” over the course of the eleven-mile route.
“I couldn’t tell if I liked it or if I was just, like, noticing it,” he said. “It was both. It was, like, a both situation. And by mile seven I was thinking about the saddle more than I was thinking about the ride. Which, honestly, is not what I bought the bike for. Or maybe it is what I bought the bike for. I don’t know anymore.”
The developer, when asked to describe the specific quality of the sensation, went quiet for a long time.
“It’s a presence,” he said finally. “It’s a very consistent presence. You can’t ignore it. It’s just — it’s engaged with you. And you find yourself, over the course of an hour, kind of engaged with it. And by the time you’re done, you’re both, like, in it together. It’s, like — I want to be clear that I am not describing a sexual thing. I am describing an experience that is adjacent to a sexual thing while being, technically, a form of cardiovascular exercise.”
He paused again.
“My wife thinks I’m being weird about it,” he added.
The developer’s wife has, per the developer, “gently suggested that I not describe the bike this way to other people.” She has also, per the developer, “expressed concern about how often I want to go on rides now.”
“He’s out there twice a day,” his wife said Thursday. “He’s coming home and he’s got, like, a look. He’s saying things like, the saddle really opens up on the descents. I don’t need to know what that means. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what any of it means.”
She paused.
“I bought him a peloton three years ago,” she added. “He didn’t like the peloton. He said the seat was aggressive. Now he has this bike and the seat is not aggressive, apparently. The seat is, per my husband, considerate. I do not know what changed.”
The developer, when this was read to him, nodded slowly.
“The peloton seat was rude,” he said. “It was pushing me. It was demanding. This one is just — it’s there. It’s, like, waiting for me. It’s not making any assumptions. I appreciate that.”
He was asked whether he had considered that the sensation he was describing was, in fact, just what riding a bike feels like as an adult, and that most adult bicyclists had made their peace with it decades ago without needing to describe the saddle as considerate, and that his current level of engagement with the bike seat was itself the anomaly.
He thought about this for a long time.
“I mean, maybe,” he said.
He was asked what specifically about the sensation he was so intent on articulating.
He looked at the bike.
He looked at the saddle.
“I just — I don’t have a lot of things in my life right now that I would describe as, like, reliably pleasant,” he said quietly. “I go to work. I eat dinner. I watch TV. I go to sleep. That’s the whole week. And then I got this bike, and I got on it, and there was, for the first time in maybe a year, something that was just, like, nice. It was nice. It was reliably nice. I don’t want to overanalyze it.”
He paused.
“I’m going to keep riding,” he said.
His wife, watching from the porch, sighed.
“He’s going to keep riding,” she confirmed.
At press time, the developer was preparing for a Thursday evening ride. He had, sources confirmed, laid out his cycling shorts, his water bottle, and a small towel he had begun bringing with him for reasons he had chosen not to disclose. The bike was in the garage. The saddle was, per the developer’s own account, “waiting.”
He was, sources also confirmed, looking forward to it.
His wife was, sources further confirmed, going to bed early.