Saddle for big guy

To summarise your situation:

6ft, 250lb (113kg) guy. Surly Karate Monkey bike. Ache where hip bones rest against saddle. Not muscular pain, more like sitting against a hard surface.

Your ache could be caused by any/all of the following:

• Wrong saddle width for you. Your saddle should support you primarily under your "sit bones". You can find videos online showing ways to measure your sit bone width.

• Wrong seat geometry for you. Any given combination of bicycle and rider produces a distinctive range of angles. How much the rider leans forward, the angle from the bottom bracket to the saddle, and the rider's anatomy, will all affect the rider's comfort in relation to a given saddle geometry.

• Wrong construction for you. People vary widely in whether they prefer sprung or unsprung saddles; leather saddles that "break in" or synthetic ones that don't; saddles with no padding, a little padding, or a lot of padding; etc. You can learn what's best for you in this regard by trying out different saddles to see what's comfortable.

Steps you could take to find a good saddle:

1. Rule out any saddles that have a rider weight limit <113kg, to be on the safe side.

2. Rule out any saddles that are designed for bikes with different geometry to yours, e.g. racing saddles designed for use with the torso raked forward.

3. As a guy, to avoid erectile dysfunction risk, rule out saddles that don't account for penile blood flow.

4. Check out these saddles, which all have weight limits ≥113kg, many of which have either adjustable width or a choice of widths, so that you can match your sit bone width, and which account for male anatomy one way or another (e.g. by being "noseless" or having central cutouts/dips):

   • Spongy Wonder MK10A
   • Spongy Wonder MK10B
   • RealSeat RS-22
   • SQlab 621 Active
   • SQlab 600 Active
   • Revla Super Comfort Bike Seat
   • Nexride Standard
   • Nexride Pro
   • Rideout Carbon Comfort: Storm Quest

(N.B. These saddles are from a spreadsheet I compiled more than a year ago. Feel free to edit this answer if any of the links need updating.)

I'm 6'2", 250 pounds. I've ridden a Brooks Cambium C17 (carved) for the past couple of years on my road bike. I've completed one 1200K (~745 mile) ride, two 1000K (~621 mile) rides, numerous other randonneuring rides and countless commutes. In addition to being comfortable it's also weather resistant (important for me as I ride mostly in the Seattle area).

I almost always wear padded biking shorts, so keep that in mind.

+1 to all suggestions to get a professional bike fit. Proper bike fit is a game of millimeters, and many of the parameters are interrelated in subtle ways.

Regarding tires: I understand your motivation for sticking with the knobbies. If you do decide to switch, consider Schwalbe Big Apples. A few years ago I put 2" Big Apples on my 26" hard-tail mountain bike commuter. It made it feel like a completely different bike. They roll well on asphalt and they good for light non-technical trail riding.

In my humble experience as a semi-professional cyclist in another lifetime I would suggest ( as commented by others ) to not go for a wide saddle.

A wide saddle will feel more comfortable for short and occasional bike trips, but when you spend a lot of time in the saddle a slimmer saddle will prove its worth.

The main reasons why people complain when using a slim saddle is that they're just not used to it. But when you start using it during short rides and progressively increase the time in the saddle it won't be a problem.

Also a good pair of pants will prove their worth when riding the bike. Don't go for the cheapest pants, a decent pants (maybe with air pockets) will help your butt from feeling sour.

Additionally you can use pants grease like the professional cyclists do, but that's only required when you spends hours after hours in the saddle.

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The knobby tires will not improve your stamina, it will improve your power and that's not the goal when starting to bike. When training to build-up stamina choose a small gear where you must pedal a lot without having to push hard on the peddles. This will allow you to improve much faster in building stamina. The ride distance isn't even that important, the number of rides is.

So my suggestions are:

1. Make short rides
2. Make many short rides
3. Don't go to heavy gears, make it a custom to pedal fast. (a bike computer that measures the pedal speed/cadence could assist ). Heavy gears are only meant to go faster if you are strong enough to push them with the same pedal speed.
4. Make many short rides

Tip: don't pedal too fast, 100 strokes per minute a great average pedal speed to train. If you go Chris Froome style it will be too intense.