Cycling’s Silent Epidemic

From Bicycling.com

TOO MANY WOMEN STOP RIDING THEIR BIKES BECAUSE OF LABIAL SWELLING AND PAIN. HERE’S WHY IT HAPPENS, WHAT THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT, AND HOW TO PREVENT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

BY

When Caroline Worrall discovered cycling at the age of 40, it was like discovering a superpower. On group rides, she was faster than others to the point where she sometimes wondered why everyone else was going so slow. Riding flat pedals on one of her early outings, she beat a group of men in a sprint. About five years in, after she’d progressed to regular 50- to 60-mile rides, she began to notice pain and swelling in her labia that forced her off the bike for stretches of time, even as long as a month. She tried at least 30 saddles over the course of a decade—none helped. Meanwhile the tissue grew thicker until she could no longer wear padded shorts on long rides. She briefly contemplated surgery. She rode mostly with men in Gainesville, Florida, where she lived. She had no one to talk to about it.

In 2009, Jacqueline McClure, then 26, got on her mom’s old steel Panasonic with down-tube shifters and rode 100 miles on California’s Highway 1. Her first elite racing team gave her a men’s Specialized S-Works saddle, which she rode for almost two seasons even though she was plagued by sores. She eventually switched saddles, but her problems persisted—and the sores progressed to permanent swelling on one side. When she told bike fitters, who were almost always men, they stared at her wide-eyed. Once a gynecologist asked, “What happened to you?” She responded, “I ride a bike all day.” Now 40, McClure hasn’t raced for three years, and rides much less than before, but until recently her labia remained lopsided. “As a woman,” she says, “it makes you feel a little damaged.”

 

Photo by Coen van de Broek on Unsplash

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