Are you sitting comfortably? A new study by The Journal of Urology has denounced earlier reports that claimed cycling-causes-impotence.

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Fear mongering about sexual health and cycling goes back a long way. Pretty much from the time that women decided to go for a pedal and The Man freaked out and tried to stop them.

In more recent times there was an infamous report published in the late nineties by a certain Dr Irwin Goldstein that basically said men, this time, should never ride bicycles.

Cue loads of tabloid headlines and the usual finger waving and anti-cyclist propaganda. There also followed a wholesale revisit of saddle design and a tidal wave of cutaway saddles launched.

Well thankfully a new study by The Journal of Urology has debunked this earlier report, and several other similar findings. Previous reports apparently “lacked the use of validated measures or comparison groups, and were limited by small sample sizes.”

This new study, overseen by Benjamin Breyer, involved 2,774 cyclists (and 539 swimmers and 789 runners). Which is quite a bit larger test sample than earlier studies that barely reached into three figures of people examined.

“High intensity cyclists had overall better erectile function scores than low intensity cyclists.”

“Standing more than 20 percent of the time while cycling significantly reduced the odds of genital numbness.”