nice feature over on cyclingtips this morning: https://cyclingtips.com/...or-breaking-records/
Gorgeous bike and saddle. Nice work.
nice feature over on cyclingtips this morning: https://cyclingtips.com/...or-breaking-records/
Gorgeous bike and saddle. Nice work.
A bit more:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cl4MpxhvrQg/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
and his feedback thus far: “ Near 100km on the saddle today. It’s superb. I love the grip. Wide nose is so supportive. The channel means zero numbness.“
While we designed the V8 for a single BTS bottle cage, it’s possible to mount two cages in a pretty clean & aero set up:
Top mounted bottle will rub your bum, so I’d only use in a race situation. And, definitely use bands to loop around bottle nozzle to keep it from ejecting.note: we are testing our own BTS cage that holds standard and on-course IM gatorade/water bottles securely while also allowing for ease of placing bottle in/out of cage.
I got my wove saddle this week and have two rides on it so far. I know Nick and I have been following this project with interest. I know that he meticulously iterated the design for the shape of the saddle and foam padding with testing from Sam Long and Rudy von Berg.
Saddles have always been a thing that I considered good if I could tolerate it for 5 hours in aero. Toleration was about as much as I have ever expected. I had been using a Dash saddle and before that I had been riding Adamo.
For several years I have used an XLab BTS single bottle mount. Below are some photos of the Wove saddle installed on my IA Advanced Frame Set.
Starting with a visual inspection of the saddle, it’s hard to believe that this thing is literally hand made by a single guy. The fit and finish are superb. The round carbon rails and their attachment points look engineered and professionally manufactured. I compare this with the Dash saddle which is handmade and looks like it. In fact, the carbon rails on my Dash look particularly janky and both of them have cracks after a couple years of use.
The BTS bottle mount includes a black-anodized bar with threaded holes that fits in the groove on the top of the saddle and a bottle cage mounts directly to the bottom of the saddle. This system is far cleaner, lighter and easier to put on and remove than the XLab system I have been using. 10x better at least!
The padding on the saddle is thicker and softer than pretty much any top end road or TT saddle that I am aware of. The semi-grippy covering of the padding is actually molded directly onto the saddle and it looks super precise and clean.
As I hopped on for my first ride and headed up my driveway, I immediately said out lout to myself, “I think I like this saddle!” It was totally spontaneous and genuine, I swear. The reason is that the shape and padding of the saddle was dramatically more comfortable to what I had been riding and it was immediately noticeable. I found the nose of the saddle to be just right for my TT position and the texture of the saddle was just right to make me feel stable in my position, but not so grippy that I could not re-adjust if necessary. The back of the saddle is in just the right place to give support when I sit up on the base bars, which was a big complaint I had about the Dash. It was pretty good in aero position, but terrible when sitting up.
As you can see from the photos and the tape on my seat post, I had to raise the post 5mm or so to match the saddle height of the Dash. On recommendations from Wove, I have the saddle installed a few degrees nose down and I think that is the way to go. I’m actually thinking about pointing the nose even a little further down.
I am more than happy with this saddle. I have not yet done a long ride on it, but if it continues to feel as great as it has so far when I’m 3-4 hours in the saddle, then I will have to declare this the best saddle I’ve ever been on.
What is the verdict on best saddle ever
I may buy one
Also looking forward to looking to buy a pair of your shoes
Thank you
Still loving this saddle. Best I’ve ever had.
Ronan McLaughlin put it on his 10 best of 2022 with quite the endorsement:
https://cyclingtips.com/2022/12/10-products-i-loved-in-2022-ronan-mc-laughlin/
While we designed the V8 for a single BTS bottle cage, it’s possible to mount two cages in a pretty clean & aero set up:
Top mounted bottle will rub your bum, so I’d only use in a race situation. And, definitely use bands to loop around bottle nozzle to keep it from ejecting.note: we are testing our own BTS cage that holds standard and on-course IM gatorade/water bottles securely while also allowing for ease of placing bottle in/out of cage.
As someone who has ridden the Dash saddle with built in BTS mount I have ejected a lot of bottles over time until I found the right cage. The cages in you picture would eject a full bottle riding off the curb. I found even the X-Lab Gorilla cage ejected bottles and the Dash isn’t as horizontal as yours. Any split at the base of the cage as you go over a bump puts shock load on the bottle and cage forcing and gap or spilt open releasing pressure on the cage and it gradually creeps back before ejecting. I was lucky enough to get a couple of Supacz carbon cages they no longer produce I can’t find pictures of online that is in essence a reverse cage made for BTS that is essentially this Enve cage reversed with the screw mounts on the front side and the base runs the length of the bottle clipping into the indent of the bottle. With open sides you can get your bottle in on an angle as you reach around. I haven’t ejected a bottle since using them and don’t use rubber bands to hold them in.
https://www.racycles.com/equipment/accessories/water-bottle-cages/enve-bottle-cage-8897
Agreed on cages. I wrote at the bottom of my post that we’re releasing a bts cage. It won’t have any splits. It won’t eject bottles regardless of how horizontal. Holds on course IM bottles without ejecting as well as 33oz standard diameter bottles.
Cages in photos: tossed on as I didn’t want to show our prototype cages yet.
You can mount the cages of your choosing - there are threads dedicated to that topic of best bts set ups, also.
We grabbed some more photos of the BTS cage set ups.
I’m headed out today to test our own BTS cage prototype which so far is incredibly easy for bottle entry/exit, securely holds 33oz bottles as well as on-course Gatorade narrow bottles over the roughest roads. Looking forward to showing images in the coming months.
For now, this is what we’re suggesting, though we find the below cages insufficient over bumps, difficult for bottle entry/exit and require a rubber band added to loop over nozzle or only using short 20oz bottles, but this is why we’re releasing our own bts cage:
The back of the saddle is in just the right place to give support when I sit up on the base bars, which was a big complaint I had about the Dash. It was pretty good in aero position, but terrible when sitting up.
I had the EXACT same feedback when I trialed the Dash Stage saddle. Ended up going back to Bi-Saddle and been using it ever since. It’s good but not perfect.
Is the Wove available without the extra carbon at the end? I need to carry 2 bottles BTS and would prefer to keep my current mount on my P5D, which the Wove mount would probably interfere with.
The back of the saddle is in just the right place to give support when I sit up on the base bars, which was a big complaint I had about the Dash. It was pretty good in aero position, but terrible when sitting up.
I had the EXACT same feedback when I trialed the Dash Stage saddle. Ended up going back to Bi-Saddle and been using it ever since. It’s good but not perfect.
Is the Wove available without the extra carbon at the end? I need to carry 2 bottles BTS and would prefer to keep my current mount on my P5D, which the Wove mount would probably interfere with.
Hi there, the current V8 TT saddle comes with the rear. If you angle your bottles on the P5D, you may be OK.
There is the possibility of us doing a bit of custom work to remove the rear, but it would be a one-off project. Email me at nlehecka@wovebike.com if interested.
We also have a saddle we’ll release in the coming months with no rear with a more narrow nose that’s ideal for TT people needing a narrow nose, and aimed squarely at road/gravel/mtb’rs.
Okay, I might be preaching to the choir here as I don’t spend much time on ST these days so I was unaware of Nick and the Wove team but I will be don’t my best to earn one of these saddles.
The saddle itself looks amazing but I’ll look to buy one for how quality a guy Nick is. Just purchased his rig and he walked me through every bit and piece of choices he made and all this on a great deal given.
This saddle is faster than my skills deserve but this saddle is now my inspiration to work harder on my TT position to prove to myself I’ve earned the right to buy one.
Knowing it’s coming from.Nick, I know this will be a great product, well thought through and focused on getting the most of those last watts we’re after.
Bravo! ðŸ‘ðŸ½ðŸ‘ðŸ½ðŸ‘ðŸ½
Okay, I might be preaching to the choir here as I don’t spend much time on ST these days so I was unaware of Nick and the Wove team but I will be don’t my best to earn one of these saddles.
The saddle itself looks amazing but I’ll look to buy one for how quality a guy Nick is. Just purchased his rig and he walked me through every bit and piece of choices he made and all this on a great deal given.
This saddle is faster than my skills deserve but this saddle is now my inspiration to work harder on my TT position to prove to myself I’ve earned the right to buy one.
Knowing it’s coming from.Nick, I know this will be a great product, well thought through and focused on getting the most of those last watts we’re after.
Bravo! ðŸ‘ðŸ½ðŸ‘ðŸ½ðŸ‘ðŸ½
Thank you for the kind words! We look forward to hearing how you like your saddle (and my former TT bike).
As a general note: we are launching a demo program where people interested in demo’ing a saddle can go to wovebike.com/demo and sign up for a 2-week demo.
MilestheDog,
What’s the width of the new Mags saddle you are doing?
MilestheDog,
What’s the width of the new Mags saddle you are doing?
Hi there, the nose of the Mags saddle is about 30.5mm at the nose, and the rear is identical to out V8 saddle at 146mm at the widest point
.
MilestheDog,
What’s the width of the new Mags saddle you are doing?
Hi there, the nose of the Mags saddle is about 30.5mm at the nose, and the rear is identical to out V8 saddle at 146mm at the widest point
Thank you.
We heavily referenced some Slowtwitch messageboard threads in some recent Instagram posts, so I’ll link to them here with snippets of captions pasted here.
#SADDLEBATTLE POST
We’ve included #saddlebattle in a number of our posts. This hashtag comes from a 2018 messageboard post on Slowtwitch by kileyay, in which he contended, “your most important piece of equipment in triathlon, by far, is unquestionably your saddle. rappstar made this statement some years ago and it has stuck with me ever since, even as I have not learned how true it is until recently.
I contend that this single piece of equipment, properly configured, can mean 30 watts in terms of performance, which is 10x or 15x the delta between Zipp and Yolo, or Enve and Flo, or whatever.
But to believe my contention, you must accept the following as axiomatic: the rotation of the hips (on a time trial bike), which is a function that is critically dependent on the part under your ass, has a causal relationship to power production and aero that is unsurpassed by any other component on the bike. Who vouches for that statement? I do.â€
SADDLE $/gram IN THE AGE OF PEAK AERO POST
The Wove V8 TT/tri saddle was conceptualized out of a wanting for what was not available in the market: a TT saddle that…
-is well cushioned.
-provides ample soft tissue relief.
-has a nose that stays narrower longer to reduce thigh rub
-holds the rider in place.
-has a squared off nose to prevent rolling off the front.
-feels good to sit up on for long periods of time.
-includes an integrated water bottle mount.
-is low weight.
Three saddles that were close to meeting the above needs, but lack two or more of the above attributes, are the PN3.0, Stride and Hilo Pro. The V8 is designed with all of these desired attributes in mind. Looking solely at weight, the averaged weight of those three saddles is more than double the weight of a Wove V8 saddle, and the V8 has no rider weight limit and surpasses ISO testing for strength.
In 2017, kileyay from the Slowtwitch messageboards did a crowd funded windtunnel test. He ended up titling the report, “Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aeroâ€, because only 100g of drag separated the six bikes tested (see report in our linktree). kileyay later concluded that, if one had to choose, money spent on reducing overall bike weight might be money better spent than seeking to reduce aero drag, if the athlete is on the right saddle and already using high-level TT/tri equipment.
If we take the average weight and price of the three comparison TT saddles mentioned earlier and compare them to the weight savings of the Wove V8, the increase in price of the V8 compared to these other TT saddles comes out to $2.30 per gram saved. For comparison, if we look at a set of NSW 353 wheels and the same company’s 303 S wheels, the reduction in weight comes out to $12.70 per gram saved. We’ll let you decide if during a TT/triathlon, where accelerations are rare, a reduction in rotating mass is worth 5.5x more than the price/gram value the Wove V8 offers.
We’ve created the V8 saddle to check boxes for attributes missing in the current TT saddle market, and we propose that there’s value in the price per gram saved for those seeking that performance advantage.
$595 USD for a saddle??? No matter which way you spin it that’s crazy expensive. Dash $229, Gebiomized $278, Fizik Mistica carbon $250, what makes your saddle worth more than double the price of those?
$595 USD for a saddle??? No matter which way you spin it that’s crazy expensive. Dash $229, Gebiomized $278, Fizik Mistica carbon $250, what makes your saddle worth more than double the price of those?
Very fair question.
The Dash Custom is $575, has minimal padding, not ISO tested for strength/durability (to our knowledge. but we respect the fellow Colorado-based company and I rode a tri.7 from 2010 to 2014).
Our saddles are well padded and greatly surpass ISO testing and have no weight limit. That is largely due to the rails and shell being one piece and made at the same time with the unidirectional carbon fiber from the rails spread throughout the entire shell of the saddle. So, part of the cost is that innovation. You may not need or value that innovation.
The two other saddles you mention are considerably more heavy, not made in the US, not handmade, so it’s like comparing a Porsche to a Kia. Now, a Kia will get you from point A to point B just as well as the Porsche, but the the latter does have performance benefits and significantly greater investment in innovation.
Another innovation: our foam and cover material are molded directly onto the shell of our saddle, both beginning as liquids. We aren’t merely slapping/gluing on something made overseas. On that, We could go overseas and pay $5/hour or less to have our saddles made. That doesn’t sit well with our values. We respect if others do not share our values.
Further, our shell and rails will last 10+ years and we offer foam/cover replacement (free during the first year and for a nominal fee after the first year).
We also have a 30 day money back, no questions asked guarantee, and a Demo program where people can try a saddle for 2 weeks for free.
Last, our saddles are darn comfortable and as pointed out in this instagram post, our saddle is 5.5x cheaper $/g than the cost of reducing weight in a set of wheels.
now, in reference to this thread …
The existence of Porsche and Ferrari does not exclude or in almost any way affect the existence of or market performance of Kia and Hyundai. There’s room in the market for both. Similarly, it would be a difficult argument to make or prove that the existence of Darimo, THM, Gelu, Schmolke, Tune, Gemini, the new Scott TT frame, $3k aerobars, or $5k wheels affect the existence and continued introduction of more affordable bikes and bike parts that help make our sports more inclusive. But, we have no issue with value signaling. Regarding the role of product reviews of high end products, I love what James Huang recently did comparing the top of the line Canyon to a lower end model on which he swapped to Hunt wheels.
There may actually be less of an effect of high-end goods on the inclusiveness in sport than there is an effect caused by demand for cheaper goods on ethically concerning working conditions in locations where those cheaper goods are produced. Reviews that only push for lower pricing might help drive that latter effect: https://escapecollective.com/report-some-shimano-bike-parts-made-by-modern-slaves/
Not sure any serious athlete looking to spend $600 on a saddle would weigh more than 85kgs so a bit of a moot point? And the Kia to Ferrari comparison is a bit silly-you can clearly show the performance increase of the Ferrari, can you similarly show the performance increase of your saddle? In your post above you talk about performance increase and 30 watts-what is this based on and compared to?
As for the custom Dash saddle it is very much custom, varying the saddle density in various parts based on the individual riders weight. Do you also do this? Also includes custom colors, logos etc, again if you are wanting to do comparisons do you do this? And the Dash saddle is lighter. And if none of this matters you can still get the stock hand made version for $229, so wouldn’t a fair comparison be the stock saddle?