Michael Warner said:I was gawping at a top-of-the-line Specialized road
bike ($11k list!) the other day, and noticed that the
saddle was nothing but a thin sheet of carbon fibre,
with no padding whatsoever.Has anyone ridden on one of these? What's it like
for a couple of hours or more - do you get accustomed
to it?
One of the things junior cycling journalists are good for is testing
ludicrous products. As it happens, our newbie journo Les quite liked
Selle Italia's all-carbon seat:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id=tech/2005/reviews/selle_italia_c64
You wouldn't want to do anything *long* on it, but that's clearly not
what it's for. If you were building up an insanely light bikes for a
hill climb TT, though, it'd do the job.
Interestingly, Jeff Jones just took delivery of a bike with a similar
carbon saddle and he reports that it's more comfortable than a certain
widely-specced *padded* lightweight saddle.
I strongly suspect saddle comfort has a lot more to do with the shape of
the hull than the padding.
John
Cyclingnews bloke.