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Have you started cycling during lockdown? As the government announces plans for more cycle lanes and the possibility bikes could be available on prescription, we're talking about the physical pain that some women experience from cycling.

We often take it for granted that cycling can make you feel a bit saddle sore. But that expectation masks the fact that many women experience real pain when cycling - due to a combination of inappropriate saddles, ill-fitting bikes and a lack of understanding by medical experts of the damage that can be done.

Woman's Hour spoke to two women who know how to make cycling as pain-free as possible. Endurance cyclist and coach Jasmijn Muller, and specialist women’s cycling physio Bianca Broadbent. Here are six things they suggest for getting back in the saddle comfortably.

"I’m not the only cyclist who’s got a small library of saddles", says Jasmijn Muller. "It was a case of 'keep trying'. Trial and error, with significant pain. It certainly is very individual."

"There’s no perfect saddle necessarily for one person", adds Bianca Broadbent. "We’re all very different and have a different anatomy.

"You tend to find that some saddles are going to relate back to your anatomy – so some of the ergonomic saddles don’t work for some people because they’ve been designed based on research by the manufacturers and might be trying to overcome a specific problem which might not apply to you."

"The saddle is not always not to blame," Bianca says. "You might have a saddle that would work really well for you, but if the positioning is far from optimal then it's never going to feel right.

"So for example if the saddle is too high, it’s going to increase the pressure, and that may well cause you to have a predisposition to pressure and pain around the vulva. Conversely, if the handlebars are too far away, you may move yourself onto the front of the saddle and sitting on that narrow aspect of the saddle really isn’t the most comfortable place to sit and you’re going to get tissue pain as a result of that."

"You can find your sit bones if you sit on a piece of cardboard and make it wet [after a shower]," Jasmijn says. "The marks that are left show the width of the saddle that you need.

"If the sit bones aren’t supported, everything will be affected because you’re going to lean on the soft tissue instead."

"With shaving, the issue you get is that some of the hairs might grow inwards and cause an infected follicle. If you’ve got, in addition to that, pressure and a hot sweaty environment, that might get more infected and from there it gets worse," Jasmijn says.

"Trim it, cut it short, but don’t remove the hair – it’s actually protective!"

"I use a double base gel," says Jasmijn. "It’s over the counter and they use it in hospitals for patients who have to lay there for a long time. But it works also if you have to sit on a bike for a long time too."

"If you do an hour of riding to the shops on an upright dutch bike, then clothing and underwear are not a problem," Jasmijn says. "But in Lycra bib shorts on a race bike, riding for longer, you don’t want any friction - so you don’t want any underwear."

Listen to Jasmijn Muller and Bianca Broadbent talk to Jane Garvey about cycling comfort on Woman's Hour. You can also follow us on and @´óÏó´«Ã½WomansHour.