Bicycle Touring 101: A little rear-end care and maintenance can go a long way

Bag Balm is a product designed and used to help treat sore/chapped cow udders. Review the comments on the can before deciding what you want to do.
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Chamois Butter is an example of a cycling specific product designed to help reduce chafing between the rider's skin and their clothing.
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One concern that many people share is the fear of a sore bum after consecutive days of riding. Other then early season retraining for those of us who don't ride through the winter your butt should seldom be sore following a bike ride even several days of them!

Unfortunately sometimes people develop some soreness and even rarer they actual get "saddle sores". It's commonly believed that the best possible preventive action you can take is to change into clean clothing immediately following your ride and to put on clean stuff again the next day before you begin your ride.

Most cycling specific clothing nowadays is designed to be very fast drying so using techniques similar to the one described in the article called "Washing your hair, cleaning your clothes and doing the dishes on tour" and possibly the addition of a Camp Shower should make it much easier to keep that area clean and happy.

Sometimes this isn't enough and there are different products that people have used to try to speed up the disappearance of this kind of a problem. Bag Balm is a product that is available in farm supply stores and is used to treat sore cow udders. You will want to read the fine print to verify that you are comfortable using this product since it is designed for animals and not people. There is a mild pain killer in the ointment which is a plus. On the downside I recall reading somewhere that this product may not be a great thing to have in contact with a leather saddle like those made by Brooks. Again this is something worth researching.

Another product is Chamois Butter. This product was designed for cyclists and is designed to help reduce the chaffing that occurs between your skin and the clothing that you are wearing. There are several other products available and just a web search away.

Unless you have a painful history of sores you might consider getting a small plastic film container or something similar and use that to carry a relatively small sample of whatever product you prefer along with you on tour.

Personally I haven't experienced saddle sores yet and with a bit of luck and care I hope that I never have to!

Moisture (from sweaty bike shorts) softens the skin, making it more easily injured. Moisture also fosters the growth of bacteria.

Salt, in the form of crystals that occur when sweat dries, acts just like sandpaper, abrading the skin.

Together, moisture and salt crystals lead to sores on the skin that give bacteria an entry point, and that's what causes painful saddle sores.

Ointments (Bag Balm, Chamois Butter, etc.) can help reduce the abrasion caused by salt crystals, while anti-bacterial ointments can help to kill bacteria, but ointments should not be needed as long as bike shorts are kept clean and dry."