Bicycle seat

Abstract

The present invention relates to new and improved seats for bicycles, which is specially designed to conformingly support the perineal/genital regions of the rider in order to improve rider comfort, and permit improvements in a rider's pedaling efficiency, and power output while remaining seated, and at the same time allows the rider to remain in contact with the seat in all positions to assure constant control of the bicycle.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Technical Field of the Invention [0002] This invention relates to a bicycle seat. More particularly, the invention relates to a bicycle seat, which comfortably supports a bicycle rider. [0003] 2. Description of the Related Art [0004] The basic design of a bicycle seat has not changed significantly over the years. The shape of modern bicycle seats has a generally horizontal profile with a narrow front-end section (the nose or horn) and a wider, flared tail section with a concave intermediate section for thigh clearance. [0005] The seats include a pliable, semi-rigid molded plastic, or nylon shell, over which conforming padding material is placed, and finally a leather, plastic, or vinyl cover is fitted. The use of new materials in modern seats has resulted in a lighter, more durable and more appealing seat than those of even twenty years ago, but the seat contours remain substantially the same. [0006] The seat of a bicycle is required to perform ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0035] The seat of this invention does not rely on the very flexible nature of today's padding materials to conform to the ischial areas of the pelvis. Instead, the seat of the present invention relays in a combination of features, such as extended nose, raised sides, cutout, and central groove, to provide greater and more even weight support to the rider. The elevation of the side of the medial section provides close anatomic support to unsupported rear sections of the pelvis so that a whole new dimension in load distribution is created. Thus, pressure upon the perineum / genital region is greatly diminished.

Problems solved by technology

Furthermore, it has being known to bicycle riders that the conventional bicycle seat can cause chafing, blistering, bruising, and possibly injury to the rider.

The design of the bicycle seat does not always provide a sufficient degree of comfort.

The primary cause of discomfort is the pressure exerted on sensitive areas of the body (i.e. the sacral, coccal, ischial, and perineal / genital regions) when the weight of the rider rests on a traditional bicycle seat.

Too little padding conforms to the semi-anatomic shape of the seat nicely, but padding (especially foam) gives out at the point of most pressure and therefore bottoms out at the most painful areas directly beneath the pelvic bones.

Because the gel like padding is a moveable fluid it still cannot firmly grip the pelvis; thus, undue movement of the pelvis occurs during a pedaling motion.

This excessive movement or grinding of the pelvic areas can cause bruising, groin pain, numbness, urethritis, neuritis, seat sores, and chafing.

These problems are aggravated by the friction and pressure that is caused to be exerted on the blood vessels and nerves along the inner and underside of the rider's pelvic region.

This results in occlusion of arteries and veins supplying blood flow to the penis, as well as, compression of local nerves as they are sandwiched between the nose of the bicycle seat and the bony structures of the anterior pelvis.

Sitting on traditional bicycle seats can compress tender genital tissues against the seat causing irritation to the genitals.

Sitting on traditional bicycle seat can increase the pressure in the pudendal arteries causing a decrease in blood flow.

This decrease in blood flow may cause numbness potentially leading to impotency in certain male bicycle riders.

A disadvantage of this design is that in order to reduce the downward pressure exerted on the genital area, the Gootter reference forms a deep opening on the seat to receive the privates of the rider.

However, such exaggerated deep opening become excruciatingly uncomfortable, especially during vigorous pedaling, since they require the rider to carefully align his or her privates with the deep opening.

This becomes increasingly difficult when the rider must repetitively “get out of” the seat in order to stretch his or her legs or to move his position frequently to use different muscles to accommodate continuously changing terrain.

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