I think I’ve hit the trifecta. No, not the horses. Nor have I surreptitiously won the MotoGP championship, the WSBK title and Daytona 200. I’m a never-was when it comes to racing and I’d sooner eat broken glass sprinkled with Tabasco sauce than wager money on the peccadilloes of a four-legged animal.

What I have done — or rather, what I am about to do — is offend a great swatch of the Canadian public. By the end of his article, I will be guilty, by my reckoning, of sexism, ageism and, giving myself the benefit of the doubt, fat shaming. Considering that this column is about motorcycles, the fact I might manage to “trigger” as much as 83.2 per cent of the Canadian population (I looked up the census) is the trifecta in my books.

The subject at hand is seat comfort, namely, the epiphany I’ve had over the last 12 months on how to improve it without spending a cent. Well, maybe if you hire a trainer, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first part of the story is that, late last year, I did a marathon 11-hour stretch of just over 1,000 km on a Harley-Davidson Pan America. Having ridden the Harley multiple times, nothing about it surprised me, except for the fact that my butt didn’t rebel. Oh, there was some chafing and soreness, but nothing like I remembered from my last ride on the big Harley.

I did some research. Called some folks. Nope, the seat hasn’t changed. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe the Pan-Am’s seat was always good and my butt was erroneous in its previous evaluation.

Fast forward to May. I’m on my Suzuki DL1000 XT and I’m riding from Maastricht in the Netherlands to Bormio, Italy. I’m almost at the 1,000-km mark and my butt is still somehow willing. What was going to be a two-day ride got condensed into one.

Loyal readers may remember my previous treatise on seat comfort and that even the winner of the test — by Seat Concepts — was no great shakes. Four hundred kilometres had me squirming; 600 was agony. Perhaps more surprising, even a long hop on an Africa Twin, whose seat is not in the Russell Day-Long Hall of Fame, failed to send me in search of sheepskins and water seats.

What gives?

After a long process of elimination, in which I examined everything even remotely related to motorcycle seats, I came to the conclusion that the difference was my ass. More specifically, my gluteal muscles. Yes, there are more than one.

I have a chronically bad back. Pretty much everything about it — from lower lumbar to sacroiliac joint — is screwed up. The diagnosis for the latest flare-up — a particularly debilitating episode that resisted the treatments that have become part and parcel of my growing old — was that my gluteus muscles were the cause. As it turns out, weak ass muscles can cause posture problems, which in turn pivots your pelvis, which then changes the orientation of your lower lumbar, which then squishes your discs and, presto, nerve pain all the way to the lower leg.

The trick, said my chiropractor, was to strengthen my glutes and — this is where the potentially offensive (note I said “potentially” since the differentiation I am about to make with regard to sexes is more than verifiable) — parts begin. I’ve been a gym rat all my life and have never done even one exercise for my glutes. Why not? Cause, well, those with XX chromosomes do butt exercises. Guys, not so much. In fact, in my now 50 years of twice-a-days, the only males I have seen doing ass-specific exercise are professional athletes whose particular sport needs strong glutes, or old farts such as myself, whose lower lumbar is past the point of no return.

What has this got to do with motorcycling, you ask?

Well, as it turns out, what is good for the lower back is also good for comfort. And as it also turns out, firm muscles back there help spread the load more than the fat most old bikers — there’s the fat-shaming and ageism I promised — often carry. Firm muscles distribute the load more evenly just like the padding of a Russell Day-Long, only without making your bike — or your ass — look like a Gold Wing.

The other reason you might sit comfortably for longer is that all that newfound muscular strength is good for stabilizing your core. Essentially, stronger muscles — including your gluteus medius, gluteus minimus and piriformis — keep your hips and pelvis in an optimal position for longer, stretching out the time you can comfortably sit in the saddle. And no, I am not making all this up. My chiropractor — a bike rider himself — Dr. Moshen Kazemi, is the esteemed Professor, Sports Residency Coordinator of Toronto’s Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and he says that good core strength — including butt cheeks it seems — facilitates the posture that makes sitting easier.

As for the exercises involved, Google Hip Thrusts, Glute Bridges and the always-popular Bulgarian Split Squat. Better yet, ask just about any woman in your local gym; they’ve known what they’re doing all this time. However you decide to improve your glutes, the upshot of all this is that, if you want a more comfortable seat, just get off your old, fat asses and do some girlie exercises. Like I said, the trifecta.