It was a small cry for help, born of sore bums and pimply buttocks. Sometimes the wolf had bitten, sometimes the saddle had turned into a fakir's palanquin. "Time and again, athletes and doctors came to us and asked us to develop a buttock cream," remembers Fritz Becker, one of the managing directors of Sixtus. The company, which since the middle of the last century had primarily produced care products for the feet, was to break new ground at the end of the 1980s - with the "Sixtufit Buttock Cream".
At a time when bikes were still hitting bikers without suspension, Sixtus began developing buttock cream. Because those who used to lubricate their seat cushions usually put their backside on Vaseline or milking fat - some even resorted to olive oil in order to be able to sit pain-free. The major disadvantage of these lubricants was that they clogged the pores and favoured inflammation. "We had to develop a cream that neutralised sweat and contained putrefactive bacteria," says Becker. However, Sixtus was not only focussing on cyclists. The cream should also appeal to riders, rowers and wheelchair users. Development began at the end of the 1980s: the Bavarians worked tirelessly on the recipe for two years. The list of ingredients reads like an advert for a toothpaste company: eucalyptus, sage, thyme, lavender... a conglomeration of Alpine herbs and flowers. True to the motto: What Ricola is for the throat, Sixtus is for the bum. After the development phase, the first tubes of Sixtus buttock cream appeared on the shelves in the early nineties. Dressed in a white aluminium coat and with a plastic screw cap on the top.
The Sixtus cream quickly made the leap into the bike world. Since then, Sixtus has been sticking to many bikers' bums - be it at 24-hour races or on a ride on the home trail. Sixtus is racing air. If you go to the toilets before the start of a marathon today, you are sure to smell it: that mixed odour of Sixtus and nervous stomachs. But the cream also started its triumphal march on another continent. Albeit in small batches. Markus Widmann rode the "Tour d'Afrique" in 2007 with a sizeable supply of the lubricant. "Actually, everything hurt but my bum," says Widmann. The man from Reutlingen rode almost 12,000 kilometres on the saddle to cross the continent in four months. Sixtus boss Becker is proud of his cream, because without it, many a winner would not have stood on the podium.
The cream has been covering the seat pads of many bike trousers for almost 20 years. The formula has not changed to this day and will not change in the future. For Fritz Becker, one thing is certain: "A proven product has only proven itself for one reason - because it is good." There is only one flaw in the cream: the cough drop odour, which often even survives the washing machine.
