Please Suggest Most Comfortable Saddle

Also, without reset rivets, the leather will not hold in place, stretching and elongating the hole punched in it. Wrong color, poorly set, more than enough justification for insisting on return and refund.
 
Alaskan said:
The Selle Anatomica is designed to be used with padded bottoms. If you can't or won't wear them, it is clearly the wrong saddle for you. You are probably better off returning it, getting your money back and continuing your search for a saddle that works better for you without padded trousers or shorts.
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I thought about getting one but I need a saddle thats flat end to end and side to side. I may be able to handle a little side to side curve but not a lot.
 
fooferdoggie said:
I thought about getting one but I need a saddle thats flat end to end and side to side. I may be able to handle a little side to side curve but not a lot.
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Are you familiar with the Selle Royal Lookin 3D. It is a firmly padded saddle that is one of the flattest both side to side as well as front and back, that I have seen. I actually have one of them that came on my wife's Riese & Muller Homage. It is one of the men's versions and she wanted a substantially different style of saddle, so it has never been used except for a brief test ride.

www.selleroyal.com

Lookin Moderate

Visible comfort and iconic design. A bike saddle for any type of riding.
www.selleroyal.com www.selleroyal.com
selle-royal-lookin-3d-moderate-man-3d-skingel-saddle-1-hires.jpg
 
Just to confuse things further:

Padded shorts work best if they are pretty tight. Chances are you'll want to go a size smaller than you'd otherwise choose for a pair of shorts.

I like "triathlon" shorts better because they have relatively less (but still sufficient) padding, they breathe well, and they dry out quickly. A wet, sweaty butt is soon a sore butt.

Proper bike fit is as important as the saddle. If you get into a situation where no saddle is working for you I'd recommend a bike fit. Even the perfect saddle will be a torture device if it is angled weirdly or too far back or forward. Do not be afraid to ask for help on getting the saddle adjusted properly for you.

Find a decent bike shop that will either lend you saddles (some have a "saddle library") or will let you trade in saddles until you find the perfect one.
 
Alaskan said:
Are you familiar with the Selle Royal Lookin 3D. It is a firmly padded saddle that is one of the flattest both side to side as well as front and back, that I have seen. I actually have one of them that came on my wife's Riese & Muller Homage. It is one of the men's versions and she wanted a substantially different style of saddle, so it has never been used except for a brief test ride.

www.selleroyal.com

Lookin Moderate

Visible comfort and iconic design. A bike saddle for any type of riding.
www.selleroyal.com www.selleroyal.com
View attachment 84377
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this is The one I use. I need a saddle flat both side to side and end to end. I wish I could find one a bit more narrow. but I can ride 20 miles a day on my commute without shorts on it. the rest I have to use padded shorts.
 
OK, I put the medium thick gel slip-on pad over the Selle Anatomica seat and I won't say it's perfect but it's pretty darn good. The new Selle was like sitting on a wooden bike seat shaped board that had some flex to it. My sit bones were not happy. With the gel pad it feels fine. Still not big enough. Maybe I need a women's seat. 🤨 I always feel like any seat I try is just not big enough. I am 6'2" ( or used to be ) 190 lbs and I have fairly slight bone structure. You wouldn't call me a 'big' guy.
 
K PierreR said:
I will say this. The Infinity saddle is the only saddle that I have ever sat on that gets more comfortable the longer you sit on it. At 100 miles its a lazy boy recliner. It's touchy on setup but once you get it right, there is nothing quite like it. I did not bother trying to solve the range problems until I solved the saddle problem.
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it looks cool but it has too much curve end to end and side to side for me. I need a more flat saddle.
 
I am 6'1" (used to be 6'2") weigh in at 205. I don't wear old school chamois shorts which deal with chaffe but are not great for padding. I wear Pearl Izumi or Shimano gel padded shorts that put the padding right where it belongs, between my sit bones and the saddle. This is how the Selle Anatomica saddles are designed to be used. If you still have the saddle you should get a pair of proper fitting gel (not foam) padded shorts and try it on a ride.

On the Selle I can do a quick 4 or 5 mile round trip without padded shorts without a problem. Longer rides require the shorts to avoid real pain and can be as long as 50+ miles with an occasional stretch break but no lingering pain at all. A big mistake many make is wearing skivvies under the padded shorts. The seams can cause chaffing problems so the padded shorts should have nothing on beneath them. Butt Butter helps some people reduce chaffe with sensitive skin.
 
No thanks on both. That springy seat post has had terrible reviews here for several years. They can get wobbly side to side becoming dangerous and unstable. It's only virtue is that it is cheap. Those barkalounger saddles make sense at an intuitive level but they are no good for power transfer and are not near as comfortable on long rides as the right padded shorts and a firm, yet supple leather saddle that can contour to your anatomy and can independently flex side to side to follow your pedaling movement.
 
Hey this is kind of becoming topical for me because the Ergon SMC saddle I bought last year is getting all squished out and is a lot less comfortable, especially on longer rides. So the search continues. I swapped out to another saddle (Sella Italia Men's FLX Gel Flow Deluxe) that wasn't quite as comfortable as the Ergon.

I'm probably going to go hit the LBS tomorrow and ask about saddles, again. Fortunately they have a deal where you can trade in saddles until you find one that fits...
 
Mr. Coffee said:
Hey this is kind of becoming topical for me because the Ergon SMC saddle I bought last year is getting all squished out and is a lot less comfortable, especially on longer rides. So the search continues. I swapped out to another saddle (Sella Italia Men's FLX Gel Flow Deluxe) that wasn't quite as comfortable as the Ergon.

I'm probably going to go hit the LBS tomorrow and ask about saddles, again. Fortunately they have a deal where you can trade in saddles until you find one that fits...
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How much resale discount on an an ass rubbed trade in saddle?
 
Alaskan said:
A few tips:

  1. I find that, for me, the saddle likes to be just a few degrees back with the nose just a bit higher. You don't want to be slipping forward on to the skinny part and find yourself pushing you fanny back and up to be comfortable. Very small adjustments of the saddle angle will make big differences. Lower the nose in tiny increment just until it takes the pressure off your delicate parts. Time spent fine tuning saddle angle will yield optimal comfort.

  2. Keep the leather properly tensioned. Use a 6mm wrench turned counter clockwise (facing back) to keep the opening between the two side at 6mm at the narrowest part. Use the wrench as gauge such that is slips through using the flat surfaces of the wrench making light contact between both sides. First few rides it will need to be done each time, then every week or so it will stabilize to the point where it will need to be done far less frequently. The black leather stretches a bit less than the other colors and has a harder surface and won't show wears or scratches. Do not use any kind of leather oil or grease on the top. It will allow the leather to stretch more. Just keep it covered in the rain.

  3. If you did not get a rain cover with waterproofing saddle sauce kit to keep the underside of the saddle waterproofed, it is a good investment in keep the leather in good shape. I highly recommend it. The saddle sauce needs to be applied quite infrequently and is used on the bottom of the saddle and the edges of the leather NOT ON THE TOP. The neoprene cover looks good and follows the contours of the saddle nicely. Just fold it up and tuck it into a saddle bag or whatever kind of bag you use to carry tools, tubes, etc. https://selleanatomica.com/products/waterproof-package

  4. Did you get the model with the alloy frame or the steel frame? The alloy frame has Chicago screws on the underside going into what looks like stainless rivets on the surface of the leather which allows for a replacement leather, easily done at home with an allen wrench. The steel frame is rivetted.

  5. Adjust the fore and aft position of the saddle: Make sure that when your foot is on the normal ride position on the pedal and the left pedal is at the nine o'clock position (forward and parallel to the ground) that your saddle is positioned fore and aft, your left knee joint is directly square over the axle on the pedal, straight down perpendicular to the ground line from knee to axle. A friend and a makeshift plumb line (piece of string with a 10 or 12 mm box wrench hung from it) will help you fine tune this.
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Spoken like a person that still has fat under his ischea. Mine all melted off age 63. I still have fat on my belly, but not on my hips where it would be useful. If the nose of the seat is tipped back, I end up sitting on my glands instead of my ischea. Those are still useful, I don't need them crushed.
The comments about a leather seat applied to me in my 30's & 40's. I was happy with a leather brooks seat I found somewhere. Doesn't work anymore. I need contour to keep pressure even across my hips, and padding to allow blood to still flow under the ischea. The groove in the middle is somewhat important I suppose, but I don't get numbness when I don't have one. I rode a Workman saddle home 2 weeks ago (30 miles) and it wasn't horrible without the groove, just bruising under my ischea. I bought a evo cruiser 218 mm 2 weeks ago with the the groove; its just okay around town but haven't ridden the 30 miles with it yet. Selle comfort cruiser wasn't in stock.
Your comments about the leather lined shorts strike me as odd. I bought a pair in 1987 with the MTB, and derived no benefit from it, not even on 63 mile festival rides. Perhaps European ancestry people whose skin is too dry & fragile can benefit from it not chaffing due to the leather. I get no chaffing from a pair of cotton/poly briefs, but my skin is not European at all. Look at 75 year old Cher's face. Its not plastic surgery, it is our skin. Extremely oily, made to stand out in the rain 24 hours a day. Very flexible & resilient skin. I grow no calluses, and can't play metal string guitar as a result.
 
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