Saddles are science

Ask 5 different cyclists, “What’s the single most important part of the bike?” and you’ll get 5 different responses.  Some will say it’s the wheels—this is where all the rolling resistance is, and the more of that you can eliminate the better off you’ll be.  Some will say it’s the frame material.  Aluminum, carbon fiber, titanium, bamboo…some want it to be stiff and responsive, others want it to be supple and comfortable, and everybody wants it to be fast and light.  Some will say it’s the frame geometry, some will say it’s the components…  Me?  I say it’s the saddle. 

To have fun on a bike, you’ve got to be able to sit comfortably on it for hour after hour.  And the thing is, a stock saddle that comes with a bike, unless it’s a really high-end bike, will generally be a very low-end saddle.  So that’s when you start looking around for something else.  They’ve got foam, gel, wider, skinnier, thicker, lighter…  Oh, and then they’ll also have the ones they keep in the glass case instead of out hanging on the wall.  (But who’s kidding who?  These are just the same as the others but about 3 times the price.)  You can try as many of them as you want. 

Or, you can go old school.  There’s an English company that makes saddles, basically the same way they did at the turn of the century (I mean that other century—since 1908 or something like that.)  These saddles are leather.  Not leather covered, or leather lined—I mean just leather.  They start with a minimal metal framework, and then rivet to that a piece of stiff, 1/8 thick (or so) piece of hard leather.  I know, it doesn’t sound nearly as comfortable as something with “gel” or “foam” in the title.  But what happens is this:  as you ride (that is, as you break them in) they tend to kind of custom fit themselves to your sit bones.  After the leather softens up a little, it’s sort of like sitting on a hammock. 

Every now and then you run across an old picture of some cyclists from 20 or 30 years ago.  Whenever we see one of those, we always comment on how old-fashioned and uncomfortable-looking those bikes are.  The shifters are in the wrong place, the handlebars put you in a bad position, the frame is all wrong...  But I also check out the saddle and think, “Man, those guys were smart.”