saddle woes

Firstly I'd endorse the "don't do anything on equipment you haven't previously tried & tested" philosophy and I'd include don't alter your position on the bike e.g. higher or lower your saddle etc. Make sure you can ride at least the longest distance in a day you expect to do on tour and that you can ride the average daily mileage on 2 consecutive days.

My 2 most used bikes are made to measure by Chas Roberts (please come out of retirement Chas I'd like a transcontinental touring frame!) One has wider clearances and a more relaxed frame for fast Audax/light touring and has a Brooks titanium Swift saddle. Yes the saddle did take around 500km before it became really comfortable and I do mean really comfortable. My other bike Mr Roberts described as "An audax bike for a closet racer". Closer clearences (I can just squeeze mudguards on with judicious use of a hot air gun) responsive handling without being "twitchy"; I used to use this bike for Audax rides & was happy riding Paris-Brest-Paris 1200km with a  classic Rolls saddle (well OK,perhaps happy is a little too positive!) I now have a Selle Italia flite SLR gelflo with a hole in the middle on this bike;  this saddle looks a bit aggresive, but I bought it after riding my son's bike which had one fitted. It too is very comfortable even over 200km, even though non cyclists have been known to say "Oooh, that looks very uncomfortable". I can easily switch from bike to bike/saddle to saddle with no discomfort.

The fact  is you have to find a saddle that fits you, it doesn't work riding the same as Alberto Contador because he can ride 200km every day on it. (I understand that although his looks like a standard model the manufacturer has added extra padding at Bertie's request).

Looking at the problem from a different angle, I was riding along with a chap in a 400km audax discussing saddle comfort. He had bought more than a dozen saddles without finding a painfree one. Someone had suggested he spent his money on a pair of Assos shorts. Taking this advice and parting with the best part of £200 he found suddenly found saddle heaven. Subsequently he tried some of his previously uncomfortable saddles and found that when wearing expensive  Assos shorts even uncomfortable saddles became comfortable!

If I had to recommend a single saddle it would have to be Brooks and made of leather; titanium rails adds a little more comfort I'm told, but make sure you get the right size saddle (width/length) and ride it until it's properly moulded to your shape.

Finally whatever saddle/shorts combination you settle on remember that your backside is tender & will need to toughen up a bit; keep all contact areas moisturized (I like Assos chamois cream) & clean to give yourself an good chance of saddle comfort success. 

Put it down to experience and don't go touring on a new saddle.

Seriously, I've yet to find a foolproof way of finding a new saddle that is comfortable: I'm sufficiently experienced to have a good idea from the shape but I've bought some excruciating ones before now. Though I would thoroughly recommend titanium rails - these definitely add to the comfort.

To avoid saddle sores it is very important to keep everything clean - wet wipes are really useful for this on a long ride - and apply creams before you get them. As ever, prevention is better than cure.

Stick with the spoon if it works for longs periods in the saddle and stick on fatter tyres for greater comfort on the rough stuff.

It might be worth looking at a pressure-mapping saddle-fitting service like that offered by CycleFit.co.uk. Bloody pricey, but compared to buying lots of unsuccessful saddles maybe not so bad. I'm considering it myself.

+1 for finding a saddle that works and sticking to it (across bikes of a similar geometry, at least). The only time I suffered was when I was mixing bikes with saddles that I'd 'broken in' or got used to individually (two commuters, one weekender/racer) - but mixing them up was different. A couple of weeks of daily use and swapping around bikes led to my first and only experience of saddle sores.

There's an article on female surgery knocking around on the site at the moment - one of the comments links to an article on bike fitting/saddle mapping. Looks worth a go.

Once I found a saddle that was comfortable upto 100 miles which was the' Adamo Road 2'. Buy another an put it on your second bike. Don't interchange saddles.

Maybe 1000k ride on consecutive days was a little too much? Have you done long multi day rides before?