Monkey Butt 2 - Creams potions and lotions

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 As an ass-side, monkey butt or chafing either riding a road bike or a  motorcycle can literally be a pain in the ass. Chamois cream which can work well for bike riding, does involve spreading lubricant over the offending area. Great for a day but really unpleasant if you have to squeeze into the same lycra for more than a day. Enter Crotch Guard!

I read about Crotch Guard on a long distance cyclists blog, the poor guy had a real issue as he rode across the USA, things were getting painful in the hinterland, that was until he tried Crotch Guard.

It is a simple mix of essential oils and antibacterial liquid  which is sprayed onto the offending area at the start of each day. I used Crotch Guard for a 6 day period riding an Endruo Bike in Sardinia. We rode on and off road, standing, sitting and on long 7 - 10 hour road rides to and from the trails.

Crotch Guard is brilliant, smells good, feels good (when applying) non messy and made the days in the saddle more than bearable. Highly recommended for preventing chafing and monkey butt.

Monkey Butt

At the end of the last long ride back from the South of France to our French base near Chamonix, I honestly could say I was broken. I could barely press my cheeks on the saddle for one minute more. So before starting our latest 3000km epic, I thought I had better sort out the "ar.." problem.

 

I have up until now been using a cheap pair of £30 cycle shorts with pad, but after the last trip these have been relegated to turbo training sessions. Motorcycle blogs are full of useful and increasingly in my experience, useless advice. So firstly this is not advice but observations from an unhappy bottom.

Knowing the KTM 690R seat was a little sharp I bought a Touratech high enduro seat. This should have worked but no amount of shuffling, baby powder, talc and creams sorted  the butt pain. After 2 hours in the saddle it was just as uncomfortable.

So a comfy butt quest was started and I have to say it has been successful, after all I would prefer to ride rather than be distracted but a painful butt.

So to the underwear I turned. I bought 4 pairs of pants, (underwear)

Nike Men's 9'' Pro Cool Compression Shorts

Craft Greatness 9'' Boxers

Moto Skiveez  Adventure Pants

and 

Hummel HERO BASELAYER MEN SHORTS Style no.: 095582055

They have all been tested over quite a few hours and I have to say the Hummel Hero pants are by far the best. 

10 is good 1 is bad

The Nike shorts don't have such a flat seam and although good enough, smell awful after a day in the saddle. 

Comfort 4 - Smell - 1

Craft. The Craft short is much better than the Nike, but it did not seem to wick so well and on the hot days felt as though they were quite sweaty.
Comfort 6 - Smell 3

Moto Skiveez Adventure. I had high hopes for these as they we supposed to be designed specifically for off-road adventure biker types. They have a bigger pad than a cycle short and are the only padded short in the test. So they were a bit disappointing. They were hot and after a full saddle day, began to feel like a wet nappy. Heavy and not so wonderful as expected 

Comfort 6 - Smell 7

Hummel were the long shot but from the off were the most comfortable off the bike and by far the best on the bike. Unlike the others, which only lasted a day before they were either discarded or relegated to gym wear, I wore the Hero Pants for 4 days in a row without washing them and on full hard hot enduro days. Brilliant !

Comfort 9 - Smell 9

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED 

HTTP://WWW.HUMMEL.NET/GB/MEN/SPORT/BASELAYER/HERO-BASELAYER-MEN-SHORTS-BLACK-DARK-GREY