Cycling Forum: Friction in bad areas

First a few questions:

1 Do you ride everyday and how long have you been riding?

2 What brand of shorts/bibs do you wear and what brand, if any, of chamois cream do you use?

3 what brand/type of saddle do you have and have you been "fit" on the bike?

4 and finally  What detergent do you use to wash your clothes?

Try Chamois Butter or BodyGlide.  Chamois Butter is a cream and BodyGlide is a stick like a solid deodorant.  Apply liberally to the, ahem, private areas and that should help the chafing problem.  Chamois Butter recommends you apply to the pad in your shorts as well, but I find it works fine just applying it to the skin.

The bike setup ques. may not seem relevant, but if you're not aligned right,  then you can't hold good form on the bike.  If your sit bones are not supporting the weight that means other stuff that shouldn't be,  is.    That's not cool and it goes hand in hand with a good saddle.  A good saddle for one person doesn't mean it's a good saddle for another.  I say go demo or try some different saddles to see if you can get more of your weight on the sit bones and a more comfortable ride.  It doesn't hurt to try!

The brand of Shorts can have a big affect too.   I would def invest in a good brand of bibs with a good chamois.  Bibs are a lot better than shorts and once you try them you'll know why.  

Well never heard of Ariel but it's always good to use a real light detergent when washing all the cycling stuff together.  If the detergent is heavy it can stay around in the chamois and that's never good.    Also Key is Chamois cream.   While Chamois butter is cheaper and works good, I find Assos^TM  is the best stuff out there.  Look it up, it's worth the price!   

Good luck!

Regarding the fit question, I just recently had my first true "fit" done.  I've been road riding on and off for approximately 20 years.  I thought I knew how to fit myself on a bike.  For $50 a local shop set me up on a fixed stand, spent an hour repositioning my cleats, moving my seat the opposite way I thought it should go, raising my seat more than I thought it should go.  I had come to expect knee and back pain from a long road ride.  I've only done around 50 miles since the fit, but it's been remarkable.  I have more strength, I'm more comfortable, and I came off the bike feeling good.

 Regarding butt butter.  Find it, use it, love it.  At first I didn't use enough.  Now I apply to the nether regions AND the chamois.  Liberally.  The first few times you'll feel like you've got a load in your pants, but it will pass, and your parts will thank you for it.

 Regarding shorts, spend the money, get quality products, and stick with it.  It doesn't make sense to spend thousands on a bike, and then skimp on the most important contact point with the bike.

 Good luck.

Eli -

I would agree on the creams or butter products! When I was a US club-level racer doing about 300+ mi per week I used creams. I would also switch out my shorts so I could wash/dry one and wear the other. With synthetic chamios it's not as critical on how dry/supple chamios is compared to older chamios. 

As for shorts: I like the Pearl Izumi 3D race and pro chamios in various shorts. Newer multi-density chamios are nice. I've stop wearing my older shorts with thinner chamios also for the comfort.

Do consider cleaning yourself after your ride as soon as possible; kind of like why you don't sit around in a wet bathing suit too long. After riding sometimes I use some Talc powder in those "regions" so that some extra moisture gets absorbed.

 Someone mentioned bike fit, which could be an issue too, like having your seat too high. I had a teammate who one week started hurting. So we measured his seat height, compared it to his fit sheet, and found it was higher then what he had.