10 OF THE BEST… SADDLES
The saddle is the most personal component on your bike, and also the most subjective when it comes to quantifying comfort. Whatever the manufacturers and their marketing machines say, one rider’s perfectly plush perch could be another rider’s instrument of torture.
If you ever visit a cycling museum, you can marvel at the bikes used to compete in races over many years. Most observer’s comments are usually levelled at the skinny steel framesets, narrow tyres, limited gears and often agricultural brakes, but just take a look at the saddles. Narrow, usually with a flat central spine and about as much give, or flex, as a railway sleeper. We tend to focus on the achievements of cycling’s legends in terms of the terrain conquered and their physical and mental prowess, but just consider what they were sitting on.
Whatever the manufacturers say, one rider’s perfectly plush perch could be another rider’s instrument of torture
Thankfully, over the last couple of decades, those same manufacturers have learnt a great deal about the relationship between human anatomy and a bike saddle and developed many methods of reducing the instances of pain and suffering – at least those caused directly by the saddle.
In this test, we’ve pitted 10 of the best current saddles against our wonderful British roads on regular training rides. Three of them are women-specific and have been reviewed by GB under-23 road and GB cyclocross rider Katie Scott. A further three saddles are said to be suitable for either gender, so Katie’s given her opinion on those too.
