Hey Whippersnapper,

It's not enough that you had to go tearing across traffic and then the wrong way on a one-way street. I was willing to overlook that, ignore your lack of helmet and bad fashion sense. But at some point, someone needs to intervene. Maybe your momma is too tired from workin' it all day to raise you up right. Maybe your father is in jail. Or worse, maybe he taught you to do this. In any case, I will be unable to sleep at night if I do not say something.

You're doing it wrong.

Your saddle is wrong. So wrong that I almost choked on the lunch I was eating as I watched you speed by. As I'm sure you know, all manner of depraved kink can be located on the internet. Take this as a sign. If one searches for "backwards bike saddles" on Google images, nothing of the sort resembling your rig appears in the first hundred or so photos. If it's too kinky for a search sans filters, it's too kinky for a boy your age.

There is nothing macho about flipping the saddle around so that you risk impaling yourself with one wrong move. Now, maybe because I'm an old bag, or whatever you youngsters today would call me, you might think I know nothing. To indulge you in that fantasy, I did some research. Jim Langley, who I'm sure has his sphincter intact, notes that:

"If the nose of the seat bothers you, tip the seat down 1 to 3 degrees. Don’t overdo it because a tipped seat will cause your body to shift forward putting added pressure on the knees and preventing the seat from supporting your weight adequately. If the nose bothers you enough that you want to tip is excessively, try different seat designs."

See how he never says that you should flip the nose of the saddle complete around and tilt it skyward? Sheldon Brown, another expert who presumably has not ripped himself a new hole, says:

"The angle of the saddle should be pretty close to horizontal. Some men prefer the front to be slightly higher than the rear; some women prefer the front slightly lower than the rear, but extreme angles should be avoided."

See? No extreme angles. Peter Jon White, yet another expert, says:

"In order to fit a bicycle, you need a saddle you can sit ON."

One website states the obvious: "Bicycling is supposed to be fun, not painful."

Nobody gets street cred by landing in the emergency room with a saddle up his ass. Nobody.