Chosing the right saddle

[MattyK]

You're welcome.

... on my bike I run about 14cm drop from saddle to bars on my tri setup.

Point of clarification - that's 14cm drop to the top of the elbow pads.

Have a read here for some geometry guidelines:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/Bike_Fit/Gen ... m_890.html
The formula for armrest elevation should say D-squared, not D2 but apart from that it's a great guideline for a fit starting point.

[colinmc400]

Isn't it funny how the saddle search can mess with your head! When i bought my first road bike in 2012, i bought and sold maybe 10 saddles and tried about every "test" saddle i could get my hands on. Had a couple of bike fits and got the polar opposite advice of "that's perfect to you", to "we will not make this work for you". After endless trial and error, i settled on a Selle Italia Turbomatic and have them on all my bikes and basically have not had any under carriage issues for 4-5 years now.

Fast forward to mid 2018 and a TT bike pre-purchase fit and i thought we were headed for the same deal. We tried several Sitero's and some Pro Stealth's and all felt uncomfortable to a greater or lesser extent. I ended up buying a new Canyon Speedmax, fitted with a Fizik Mistica as stock and blow me down with a feather, the bloody thing was SOOO comfortable from day one. Haven't touched it or moved it at all and soo happy.

Now in fairness i only do the local ATTA events and haven't spent more than 90mins on the TT bike, but my nether regions have approved the Mistica for sure.

[MattyK]

Siteros are hard and fairly narrow, and the Pro Stealth is more of a road saddle.

I've heard good things about the Mistica. The contact points aren't dissimilar to an ISM. Note there are two widths of it, which is apparently not widely known. And in the context of converting a road bike (where you need to push the saddle a long way forwards), the rails aren't very long and don't allow you to move it forward very far.



Anyway, glad you found some joy between your legs.

[g-boaf]

Siteros are hard and fairly narrow, and the Pro Stealth is more of a road saddle.

I've heard good things about the Mistica. The contact points aren't dissimilar to an ISM. Note there are two widths of it, which is apparently not widely known. And in the context of converting a road bike (where you need to push the saddle a long way forwards), the rails aren't very long and don't allow you to move it forward very far.



Anyway, glad you found some joy between your legs.

Sitero is a strange saddle, I've tried one of those - and have one packed away never to be used ever again. If someone wants it, I'm happy to do a deal - it had very little use and I'm happy to sell it.

The ISM isn't totally perfect, but it is better. I hadn't known of the Mistica before.

Maybe there is some magical saddle in this category, but I've certainly not found it yet.

[MattyK]

I don’t think there will ever be a magic saddle that works for everyone.

Based on reading slowtwitch articles and fitters commenting on the forum, there is a small handful that make up the majority of successful candidates (from memory):
ISM PN3.0 or PN3.1, and the older PR2.0
Cobb JOF55 (or Randee for those that don’t like noseless)
Fizik Mistica
Dash saddles (Stage 9 mostly I think)
And probably some others I’ve forgotten