I am in the market for a new seat for my road bike. I am looking for comfort mainly since i do alot of riding and longer rides. I ride between 800-1200 miles a month and typically 40+ miles at a time. I am looking for Comfort but also something that has style and performance… what do you guys and gals recommend !? Price doesn’t matter…
Bike saddle
Saddles are so personal. It’s impossible to say.
Specialized makes some good ones. My preference is for sella italia flight original.
Yep, me too.
This is such a highly personal thing but there a few things which can help focus a choice. In the same way handlebar width should relate to shoulder width, the saddle width should relate to the width of the contact points of the pelvis on the saddle. This is why womens saddles are wider and saddles in general come in a series of widths. You can get a close friend to measure your pelvic structure and make sure this relates to the saddle you eventually purchase. This is especially true if you are doing long millage.
The next point would be saddle form. Personally I have moved to saddles with a cut out to relieve pressure which I felt was contributing to discomfort and urinary issues whilst out on long rides I would never have gone this way when I was younger. Saddle nose form is also important and relates to how you ride and the type of areas you ride in. Some people like to ride forwards a lot on their saddle and support on the nose is important along the lines of a time trial saddle. I for one do a lot of ridining over terrain which means I am up and out of the saddle a lot for short bursts and for me the oposite is true, I like to have clearance there. Overall getting these issues right are what leads to getting close to your ideal saddle. Comfort is more about support in the right place and being able to get a solid contact point in place when putting the power down than about soft padding/gels etc… What I would say is be prepared to work through a few options.
Ask around every real cyclist worth there salt will have half a dozen or more saddles lying around the house, I have at least double that, and would have no issues with lending them out to someone who I knew to try. Once you find something that works its a bit like running shoes you want to buy every pair in the shop in your size in case they stop making them. I could say what I use but that would be a bit pointless, you get what you pay for but after time they all show their age. Personally I like the well worn, mud stained once white saddle on my road bike, it bears the scars of crashes in the same way as my legs do and we have been through a few miles together. If this aesthetic is not for you I would say black is the new black.
Of course you do have one other choice and that is not to find a saddle which might be compatible to you, but to develop a saddle which is a perfect match to your body, and that is of course to buy a leather saddle such as a Brooks England. Such a choice takes time commitment and patience all of which I have been short of but I know a few individuals who I suspect would rather loose a finger on their hands than their years old leather racing saddles.