I also would be curious as to Jim's answer, but I suspect it depends...
I have recently figured out that the Bontrager Hilo XXX or RXL -- which is the saddle I rode for years on the TT bike and the one that cost me ~25 watts as I went lower and longer and steeper with that same saddle under my taint -- is a great saddle for me
on a drop bar road bike, especially one with an "aggressive" fit that more closely approximates a TT position. The reason it was a great TT saddle for me when I looked like this...
...is the reason it was a suboptimal saddle for me -- in terms of power production, not comfort -- when I looked like this
Similarly, in my first season I rode the Arione, which seemed to work just fine for me:
Before my second season, like Toefuzz, I spent hundreds of dollars on a Retul fit and out of that I looked just as bad if not worse, but I liked the Bontrager RXL saddle they let me try:
Eventually slowtwitch, or people I met through slowtwitch, got me to this point (same saddle):
Except for the rounded back, which is usually a bellwether or something, I looked okay but my power was down a lot, and that's because my hips were not rotating forward commensurate with the lowering and lengthening and steepening of my body, which needed to rotate as a system around the bottom bracket.
To address this, I moved from 170s to 165s down to 162.5s with not much (if any) impact on power production, though the slightly more open hip angle between 170 and 165s was discernible, while the 162.5 left me feeling like I lost too much leverage, so I settled on 165s. All this while flipping Quarqs...what a nightmare that season was.
At this point I kind of knew the problem was my saddle, even though nobody was telling me, so I went out to try new saddles, like the new Fizik:
But every time I wanted to try a new saddle, I had to take about 3 or 4 videos (like the screenshot from the video above) just to get myself even close to where I was on the previous saddle (i.e. to a fit that looks similarly optimized relative to that fit on my baseline saddle) and then I had to do 2 or 3 or 4 takes for someone who isn't me / who actually knows what they are talking about (i.e. a remote fitter) to nail it perfectly. Nailing the fit perfectly was critical to an objective assessment of the saddle itself, and there are many elements, including slope of the saddle, that are hard.
Moreover, saddles that seemed fine on the Kickr weren't fine outdoors. I felt like I was falling off into space on the Fizik. And those that did seem fine outdoors sometimes looked no different in terms of hip rotation (relative to my baseline) in trainer videos taken indoors. To make matters worse, assessments could take more than one ride because those assessments needed to accurately judge power production relative to the baseline, and that's a hard thing to do in just any one ride.
This process of trying saddles was (and remains) horrible, especially during the season, when you're trying to train and not mess with stuff like this which throws off your current status quo position / fit that you have worked to optimize around the saddle you have rather than the one you should. But yet that seemed to be the best, most comprehensive way to solve the problem. Flipping Quarqs to test crank length, while raising the saddle commensurate with the shorter length, is infinitely easier than trying saddles -- go figure.
Tired of experimenting, I stuck with the Bontrager saddle in 2017 -- but, I decided that I wanted to go lower and longer than my equipment would allow, so I needed a new bike obviously, and I sold the old Felt B series and set up the Syntace Force 110mm stem with an Enve undermounted bar to get 2cm lower than I was before on a new frame. I looked better and felt better but my hips were still pointed to the heavens like I was riding a Fizik Arione in 2012. My power was
still 25 watts light.
Eventually I found a saddle that allowed me to produce roughly similar power in aero on a time trial bike that I can in the drops on a road bike, and that is the motivation for this thread. The fit looks
like this but it wouldn't look anything like that if the saddle wasn't the narrow Dash Stage. Then again if the saddle was the
standard Dash Stage, I'd come off the bike with chafing so bad I wouldn't dare try to run, even if it looks just as good on the fit bike/in the fit studio -- see the problem?
I haven't raced this year but in training I have found that, with this saddle and fit, I can produce the same power in aero on my TT bike now -- with a more "aggressive" (i.e. longer and lower) fit than ever, as I now ride a full 3cm lower than I did on that last Felt pic -- that I could in 2012 and 2013 when I rocked a road bike fit. This power is conveniently the same as that I can make now in my road bike drops, where I am most comfortable using the Bontrager saddle that I loved when I rode a time trial bike like it was a road bike -- as almost all triathletes still do.
I've messed around with saddles a lot recently across road, gravel, and mountain and at last I feel I have found the right saddle for TT road, for aero road/aero gravel, for upright road and/or gravel, and for flat bar setups (i.e. mountain/fat/plus/commuting). They are all different. The narrow Dash Stage goes on my TT bike, the Bontrager RXL/XXX saddle goes on my aero road/gravel, and the Brooks Cambium C17 or the Bontrager road/mountain options go on all my other bikes. Mix those around and shit gets really weird. In general, I've found that the more upright your body, the less issues I have with any old random saddle, which is probably why you see people who have been fit by bike shops with 4cm of spacers under their stem. Saddle-centric fits are hard, but those are the only fits worth anything.
So my overall thesis goes something like this: the saddle that is right for you depends on your fit, and your fit depends on your saddle, and the assessment of that fit and saddle is a process -- I continue to hear that this process can be completed in one session or two and I continue to call "bullshit" -- that takes a lot of time to solve and optimize over the course of many mini sessions and while at least giving a fair shake to four or five saddles in a full on #saddlebattle.
I enjoy trolling Mat Steinmetz's instagram pointing out saddles that are obviously wrong, and Mat (and I believe cyclenutnz also) told me the same thing regarding my remote fit / flash fit product idea -- they say the time demands on a fitter are too high. Going back and forth sending videos between athletes and fitters simply takes them too much time. Well, yeah, of course it does...which is why the product should be significantly more expensive.
Think $1,500 for a service that has cost me and many others significantly more, but the service comes with unlimited flash fits, up to 6 saddles to demo, and the camera stand and all that that Jim offers. Athletes are flying to California from South America to get fit by these ERO goes, or from any number of places to Colorado in order to appear on 51 Speedshop's instagram feed (fit is secondary), and I just think that is so stupid when if you leave with the wrong piece of equipment under your ass, which you may well find out later, then the whole exercise is worthless.
Buying a bike that fits is important, but finding a saddle that allows you to achieve your best fit -- with best being inclusive of that which has the least incursion on power production, as well as aero -- is what tells you what bike that is.