Hi All,
I would like to gather opinions on the ISM Adamo Road Saddle. I ride tris, pretty much one a month from April through October and group rides with my cycling club - about 2-3 a month (50 miles plus). I ride a road bike.
Any thoughts on the saddle or my intended use?
Thanks,
Jeff
I love mine. I have about 700 miles on mine now. I did a spin class yesterday for the first time in a while and the seat was awful. I rode the trainer this morning and my man parts were much happier. TMI?
I had an ISM Adamo Race, ended up preferring the Cobb Vflow Max.
The bike with the max is strictly for tris, but it’s pretty damn comfy when in the drops too.
You might want to look into the Vflow or the SHC, which are not such an extreme cutout tri saddle.
Cobb is well known for best trial period & warranty in the biz. Even better, give John a call & ask him, he designed the ISM too.
Never felt secure enough on the Adamo for road use - not enough under me to feel like I could bump and hit bumps and control my bike like I’m used to. It lives on my TT bike though and I love it there.
Never felt secure enough on the Adamo for road use - not enough under me to feel like I could bump and hit bumps and control my bike like I’m used to.
Really? Have you tried it as a road saddle? About the only difference I can tell is that it’s a lot easier to drop my butt to the top tube when I “tuck” on screaming straight descents since there’s no nose in the way 
I have two Road models, one on my time trial bike and one on my road bike. They took very little time to get used to (less than five miles on the first ride). The best part is the total lack of saddle sores…
I have the Adamo Race on both my Tri and Road bike. I don’t have a problem with either and don’t plan on riding another saddle until I have problems with it. It ain’t broke so why try and fix it I had problems before so that is why I am hesitant to try other saddles, and it is comfortable so I don’t see a reason to change it.
I have the adamo road saddle. I am a fan. I use it for training and racing. No problems with the saddle. I normally put 10 hours a week of riding and don’t wear any padded shorts, just swim jammers.
My take on the ISM Adamo Saddle? It is strong medicine.
If you are already passing on all points of this saddle comfort and acclimation checklist:
I am wearing high quality bicycle shorts (not tri shorts) preferably bibs.My shorts fit very snug. The fit is tight, supportive and accurate. I do not wear any undergarments of any kind under my shorts.I use chamois lubricant such as Assos or Chamois Butter regularly.My bike fit and positin has been professionally verified as optimal by a fitter with experience whom I trust. I have adequate saddle acclimation of at least a season of performance oriented road cycling of over four hours average per week on the bike over the course of a year. I have already used- and found unacceptable even with all of the above factors in place- more conventional saddle designs.If you pass muster on those points you are an Adamo customer.
Why the phalynx of qualifying questions? The ISM Adamo is strong medicine- like chemotherapy. You don’t get chemothrapy unless you know you need it. You don;t get it for a chest cold, you get it for chest cancer. The Adamo is the same.
On the Adamo you are going to a shorter saddle that works by partially removing weight from the saddle area and redistributing it forward. If you read the instructions for the Adamo there is a reference to angling the nose of the saddle slightly downward. That shifts or slides rider weight forward and changes the center of gravity of the bike, placing more weight on the handlebars. Bikes are “upside down” vehicles that weigh about 20 pounds and carry a nearly 200 pound payload very high on their center of gravity. To make matters more complex, that payload is in constant motion (pedaling) and shifts around a lot (climbing, in the saddle, out of the saddle, etc.). When you go to the Adamo the deal you are making is giving up some saddle length in exchange for a redistribution of weight and an expected increase in saddle tolerability. That’s a hard bargain.
If you search on this website over the past three months on the ISM Adamo saddle you will find a number of threads where people bought them and had initial discomfort and started asking “How long does this take to break in?” A more operative questin may be, “How long do* I* take to break in?”
The ISM Adamo is a fine saddle alternative when more conventional designs aren’t working. It is not a viable substitution for good saddle comfort habits as listed above.
My take on the ISM Adamo Saddle? It is strong medicine.
If you are already passing on all points of this saddle comfort and acclimation checklist:
I am wearing high quality bicycle shorts (not tri shorts) preferably bibs.My shorts fit very snug. The fit is tight, supportive and accurate. I do not wear any undergarments of any kind under my shorts.I use chamois lubricant such as Assos or Chamois Butter regularly.My bike fit and positin has been professionally verified as optimal by a fitter with experience whom I trust. I have adequate saddle acclimation of at least a season of performance oriented road cycling of over four hours average per week on the bike over the course of a year. I have already used- and found unacceptable even with all of the above factors in place- more conventional saddle designs.If you pass muster on those points you are an Adamo customer.
Why the phalynx of qualifying questions? The ISM Adamo is strong medicine- like chemotherapy. You don’t get chemothrapy unless you know you need it. You don;t get it for a chest cold, you get it for chest cancer. The Adamo is the same.
On the Adamo you are going to a shorter saddle that works by partially removing weight from the saddle area and redistributing it forward. If you read the instructions for the Adamo there is a reference to angling the nose of the saddle slightly downward. That shifts or slides rider weight forward and changes the center of gravity of the bike, placing more weight on the handlebars. Bikes are “upside down” vehicles that weigh about 20 pounds and carry a nearly 200 pound payload very high on their center of gravity. To make matters more complex, that payload is in constant motion (pedaling) and shifts around a lot (climbing, in the saddle, out of the saddle, etc.). When you go to the Adamo the deal you are making is giving up some saddle length in exchange for a redistribution of weight and an expected increase in saddle tolerability. That’s a hard bargain.
If you search on this website over the past three months on the ISM Adamo saddle you will find a number of threads where people bought them and had initial discomfort and started asking “How long does this take to break in?” A more operative questin may be, “How long do* I* take to break in?”
The ISM Adamo is a fine saddle alternative when more conventional designs aren’t working. It is not a viable substitution for good saddle comfort habits as listed above.
Talking out your a%* again, I see…although for the subject, I guess that’s appropriate
You make it sound as if an Adamo is some sort of “last resort”. Bullshit. It should be the first resort if you ask me. The vast majority of the time the reports of “initial discomfort” typically boil down to some sort of error in setup (i.e. trying to sit too far back, not having the rails level as a starting point, etc.).
Weight distribution between the saddle and bars should be unaffected when you get it set up correctly. Heck, for me, I probably put MORE weight on the saddle after switching to an Adamo than I did before using that saddle…because I *could *without it feeling like my “manly bits” were being shoved up towards my throat!
For any “moderately aero” position, either on a TT/Tri bike or a road bike, the Adamo just plain “makes sense”.
If you only knew of how many people (who were perfectly “ok” with they’re “standard” saddle choice) I convinced to give an Adamo a try who basically came back to me with reports of epiphany-like experiences…
I’m not an expert, but I do have an Adamo Race (so not the Road saddle but very similar) and I disagree with just about everything here.
Properly angled, the Adamo does NOT put additional pressure on your upper body. The reason that they give the instructions that they do is that traditional ways of measuring ‘level’ for a saddle don’t work for the Adamo. So it is ‘as if’ the saddle is pointed down a bit, but it isn’t really, at least not if you take that to mean, as apparently you do, that it creates a tendency to slide forward. It does not do this at all (at least not for me, and I ride another bike that does not have the Adamo, so I’ve got a reasonable point of comparison).
As for the list of qualifying questions, huh? Some I agree are no-brainers (have a good fit, don’t wear stuff under your shorts). Others befuddle me. No tri shorts? What? I’ve done 8 hours rides in tri shorts. No problems (well, not problems apart from what you’d expect after 8 hours in the saddle). In fact, in general, I find that I have fewer problems with tri shorts than I do with regular bike shorts.
Assos? I used that stuff religiously for a long time, then stopped. Guess what? No difference. (Apart from no tingly feeling when it goes on, and no “did I just shit my pants or is that the chamois cream” thoughts). I’m only speaking for myself here – it made zero difference. I’ve done 8 hour rides, blah blah blah.
I’m not a zealous defender of the Adamo. My other bike doesn’t have one. I got it because I mistakenly thought that the problems I was having on my tri bike were due to the saddle. Instead, it was my fit. But the saddle works just fine for me, so I see no reason to change, and chemotherapy it ain’t.
My take on the ISM Adamo Saddle? It is strong medicine.
If you are already passing on all points of this saddle comfort and acclimation checklist:
I am wearing high quality bicycle shorts (not tri shorts) preferably bibs.My shorts fit very snug. The fit is tight, supportive and accurate. I do not wear any undergarments of any kind under my shorts.I use chamois lubricant such as Assos or Chamois Butter regularly.My bike fit and positin has been professionally verified as optimal by a fitter with experience whom I trust. I have adequate saddle acclimation of at least a season of performance oriented road cycling of over four hours average per week on the bike over the course of a year. I have already used- and found unacceptable even with all of the above factors in place- more conventional saddle designs.If you pass muster on those points you are an Adamo customer.
The ISM Adamo is a fine saddle alternative when more conventional designs aren’t working. It is not a viable substitution for good saddle comfort habits as listed above.
50+ different saddles over 25+ years of riding (250,000+ miles) and it only took less than 15 minutes to determine the Adamo was the best feeling saddle I have ever ridden. While saddles with cutouts were better than saddles without cutouts, nothing comes close to the way the Adamo works. I tried riding a more conventional saddle after having ridden the Adamo for a few months and I was in agony after 30 minutes.
I love the Adamo Saddle, however I found that it takes quite the amount of time to conform, and takes much getting used too coming from other saddles. After 400 miles or so, I give an A to Adamo saddle!
-which is why we see so many used in top cycling events like the Tour de France and among the top professionals at Ironman.
Oh wait…
Try this test: type “ism adamo” into the search engine at the top of this page. Hit “search”. See what you get. It’s a pretty mixed bag. Some love it, some report difficulty with it.
We sell it- I have nothing to gain by disparaging the ISM Adamo. Just trying to lend some balance here.
50+ different saddles over 25+ years of riding (250,000+ miles) and it only took less than 15 minutes to determine the Adamo was the best feeling saddle I have ever ridden. While saddles with cutouts were better than saddles without cutouts, nothing comes close to the way the Adamo works. I tried riding a more conventional saddle after having ridden the Adamo for a few months and I was in agony after 30 minutes.
same story as uberslug, but tried ~12-15 tri-specific and road saddles over 2006 - 2007.
Nothing even compared to Adamo Racing. Since early 2008 I have ridden Adamo Racing, Road, Podium, Breakaway, and Peloton, with Road, Peloton, and Breakaway on my road bike.
I originally didn’t think the Adamo would help all that much on a road bike, but I was sure wrong, and glad I was wrong at that.
You will most definitely like, just commit to at least 1-2 week’s worth of riding before you decide to buy.
We have 4 of them in my house, 3 on my bikes 2 TT and 1 road and now one my wife’s bike.
Honest question Sir- can you ride no-handed with it? You may be able to. Many people who use it cannot.
And while the capability to ride no handed isn’t some golden bb litmus test of unmitigated “rightness”, it does provide an interesting insight into the handling characteristics of a bike throughout it’s entire performance envelope.
Personally, one man’s opinion, just me sayin’, no scientific study, I think the capability to ride (and steer to some degree) while going no handed, as in shouldering a mussette bag in the special needs bag pick up area at Ironman, is actually a reasonably functionable capability.
-just my opinion…
I tried the Adamo and didn’t like it. Gave me serious chafing on my inner thighs, it was too wide - and I’m no featherweight (165lbs with 34in waist). The Cobb Vflow Max was better, but too squishy, the Cobb Vflow Plus is perfect. Different strokes for different folks, everyone’s morphology is different.
Slowman on this forum did a review of the ISM Adamo a few years ago and found that, for those who considered it too wide, drilling holes through the saddle shell and pulling the two forward-facing protrusions together with zip ties can help.
Sometimes people who us them have them slid too far forward on their rails. In my opinion the saddle has a relatively small “sweet spot” or best place to sit- you have to slide it back and forth to locate that individually, as the installation instructions indicate.
I’m a little surprised they haven engineered a narrower version, or a capability to adjust the width of the nose by turning a bolt to draw the forward facing “horns” together. A version of the saddle like that would provide interesting options for Adamo fans.
Another marketing opportunity for the good folk at ISM is “Adamo Specific” bike shorts and Tri shorts. Shorts with a pad they mimics the shape of the Adamo as do conventional bike short pads mimic the shape of a conventional saddle. Those would sell.
-which is why we see so many used in top cycling events like the Tour de France and among the top professionals at Ironman.
Do you mean besides those pesky equipment sponsors and a general ignorance?
We sell it- I have nothing to gain by disparaging the ISM Adamo.
You don’t call referring to the design as the chemotherapy of saddle solutions and basically saying “only settle on it as a last resort” at least slightly disparaging? Wow.