I was on a ride this morning at mile 8 when I heard a loud snap. The seat tipped to the right. I felt under the front right corner and sure enough…#3 down and out! I had inspected this saddle just 2 days before this and found no signs of a crack. By the Way - the clamp was just in front of the mid point on the rails. So there was not any excessive rail in the front.
I have 1 more Azoto, so i figure I’ll use this one for about 2-3 months before it fails, too. Then I’ll replace it with a VisionTech. I’m not spending $30 every 2-3 months and waiting for the saddle to ship to and from Italy. Great saddle they made, but sh*tty rails!!
see, this is your problem. all the rest of us with azotos have ridden ours for a couple of years with no problems. but we only ride a maximum of 7 miles per ride.
of course i’ll put 5 or 10 of these rides immediately back to back, but it keeps the saddle from breaking. too bad you didn’t know the secret most of the rest of us know (but now you do).
so is that what they call intervals? 16 of them back to back and you may be onto something. how about a warme up swim of, say 2.4 miles, and then a cool down run after the bike - hmmm, 26 plus miles ought to do it.
My right leg is a full inch shorter then my left. I ride with the cranks to BB set to my left leg. Over the past 14 years I’ve learned to pedal more “toe down” with my right (shorter) leg. My body has made adjustments to the shorter leg and I no longer wear shims while cycling or running. BUT - all these saddles, if I remember correctly, have broken on the front right rail. The rail on the short leg side. I’m wondering if any rocking motion to the right side, due to the shorter leg, may have an impact on the failed rails! I used the Flight Titanium saddles for 10 years and never had one break though.
I would be willing to wager that you have a problem with your satpost. Any time I have seen this happen in the past, it was happening because:
there was a bur on the seatpost clamp
the seatpost was a design that did not clamp the full length of the rail, only clamping at the ends (many lightweight designs do this, and it’s a bad idea).
similar to the previous, the seatpost design was/is one that clamps a very small section of the seat rail.
The seat rails are all breaking at the bend of the rail, not at or near the seat post clamp. I have broken them on a custom Tiemeyer, with a Torque titanium seat post, as well as on my Zipp 2001,with the Zipp made clamp. I do believe that the seat post had no bearing on the rail failures.
Selle San marco in Italy replaced the first one without a hitch, no questions asked. The second one I reported to them and received NO answers. So I contacted Sinclair Imports - and they replaced the second one without a hitch. Its been posted here a number of times that Selle San Marco now requires all returns to Italy with a check for $30 and they’ll replace your rails and send the saddle back to you. I won’t be spending the time or $$ to do that. After the last one I have breaks I’ll be switching over to the Vision model with the heavier rails.