If it's chafing, they make a special anti-friction cream. Most bike shops have it.

are you wearing padded shorts?

Your butt is going to hurt until it gets accustomed to sitting on the seat. Keep on riding and the pain from the seat should go away. As far as chafing, I second getting a pair of bike shorts and chamois cream.

Have fun riding!

Ooh, no...padded saddles are bad. Padded shorts, good. Is the chafing from your underwear? Wearing padded shorts without undies may be the only thing you need to change. Or maybe your saddle is simply the wrong shape/size. I personally cannot do pear-shaped saddles or I get bad inner-thigh burn (where my thigh meets cheek) and have to keep pushing myself back on the saddle. I do best on t-shaped saddles with really abrupt transition from nose to rear. And firm saddles, too. Squishy just makes the saddle deform and press into sensitive spots.

The anti-chafe cream or lubricant is sold at mainstream sports stores like ****s and Sports Authority, too, in the bicycling section. Use liberally! The instant you're done with any workout or anything that made you sweaty, get in the shower - letting that sweat stick on your skin will irritate your skin further. I know some people here will be like, Duh, but I have kids and frankly sometimes I don't have time to get in the shower right away, but that hasn't been good for my skin.

ww.teamestrogen.com has bicycling shorts in your size; they have them up to women's 4X and currently have a bike short in 5x (but it looks a bit skimpy on the length; but it might work for a really short plus size woman.) A lot of us plus size women try wearing men's clothing in order to get large enough sizes; that works for some clothing items, but bike shorts are anatomically very different in their padding. The Canari brand is lower-price for bike shorts and some of their styles run large. Men's bike shorts have most of their padding up front; not enough in the back for a woman. My point is, men's shorts just won't protect your rear. If you've been wearing natural fibers, the problem might be that they hold a lot of wet sweat right up against your skin. Synthetics, for all their nastiness, at least don't hold sweat like a sponge like cotton does.

You might also need to have your seat at a different angle, perhaps pointing the "nose" down just a tiny bit.

I'm with the no padded seat gang on this issue. Padded shorts (no undies- learned the hard way) and chamios creme. If you go with the padded shorts go to a good store and try them on, if they don't fit you well through the crotch don't get them. You can see my favorite bike in my pic, and it has a skinny hard seat, LOVE IT, but I also have a hybrid (bought it 12 years and ~70 lbs ago) I ride with the family that have a big squishy seat, HATE IT. What I've found is the more points of contact there are the more places there are to rub. Go to a Local Bike Shop (LBS), get fitted, just sit on a gel pad and your hip bones will make an indention, then the shop can use this measurement to fit you to a new saddle (Think mine was around $50 when I replaced one a few years ago). It makes a huge difference. If you go to the place you bought your bike they may have suggestions. Good Luck and keep riding!

I have not read the nine million other posts ahead of me, but they possibly offer the same advice... Invest in the proper clothing for cycling, and buy a product like Chamois Butt'r to help prevent/soothe chafing. I like to use Body Glide, an anti chafing product that goes right on your nether region like Speed Stick...

Proper shorts - well fitting lycra with a proper padded "chamois" insert (it's not really washleather - they used to be, but these days they're a really high-technology 2 way stretch perforated gel with layers of mesh and coolmax over them) - and - here's the real kicker... NO PANTS/KNICKERS/ANY OTHER UNDERWEAR under the shorts. Some people swear by additional preparations like Chamois Cream - the "UDDERLY SMOOTH" or "CHAMOIS BUTTr" makes are good, but for real long distance stuff I wouldn't be without my Assos Chamois Cream and a good pair of bib-shorts.

Saddles are a personal thing - everyone's backside is different, and frankly it's almost impossible to recommend a particular saddle. A good Local Bike Shop will be able to recommend something - some shops (Specialized dealers I believe) even have an *kitten*-o-meter which you sit on, and it measures the distance between your Sit-Bones - so you can get the correct width of saddle. The fit of a saddle is so specific that for example, my favourite saddle - the Fizik Arione, which I can sit on and ride all day without problems on my roadbike, feels completely uncomfortable and just "wrong" on my touring bike frame... all because I'm a little more upright on the tourer, and as I'm not leaning forward so much, there's more weight on my sit-bones on the tourer.

It can take a while to find a saddle that suits - but it's oh so worth it in the long run - or long ride as the case may be...

Why do you guys say no on the padded saddle? I love my gel saddle and planned to move it onto my new bike.

On a relatively upright bike it may work...on a road bike where you are in a more forward/aero/aggressive position most people find that the gel displaced by their sitbones moves forward, mashing into their privates and causing chafing and/or nerve impingement. Nerves that you REALLY don't want damaged. I find the harder the better. Sit bones and the tissue surrounding eventually toughen-up and don't hurt at all (seriously, after riding across lower MI last Summer my butt was about the only part of me that didn't hurt and I was on a rock hard saddle).

Why do you guys say no on the padded saddle? I love my gel saddle and planned to move it onto my new bike.

On a relatively upright bike it may work...on a road bike where you are in a more forward/aero/aggressive position most people find that the gel displaced by their sitbones moves forward, mashing into their privates and causing chafing and/or nerve impingement. Nerves that you REALLY don't want damaged. I find the harder the better. Sit bones and the tissue surrounding eventually toughen-up and don't hurt at all (seriously, after riding across lower MI last Summer my butt was about the only part of me that didn't hurt and I was on a rock hard saddle).

Thanks. I had it on my mountain bike and my new bike has a more upright posture - not like a road bike.

have one pair of Pearl Izumi symphony shorts that has mesh in the sides. They were great at first but the mesh did not lend good integrity to the fabric and it stretched and made the chafing really bad.

I have 2 pairs of those dumb things...the Symphony Cut (the shorter version). By the end of Summer they were totally stretched out and baggy. I never equated that issue to the chafing I started getting, but it makes sense.