benkoostra said:
Over $300 for a saddle? Please......
Really, they have one at my LBS, the guy over the counter is a racer-friend of mine, I saw the saddle at $329.
"Wow, who buys these?"
"Idiots"
"oh."
Saddles cost about $12 to make. This design is heavy on bullsh*t. It does not do anything fundamentally different than other saddles that perch you on your sitbones (i.e. Brooks, Aspide, SLR) and allow perineal blow flow.
The journal article about the efficacy of these saddles is published by Caruso,the same guy who designed the saddles and who works for SMP. The same is true for the Specialized Toupe -lots of 'scientifical' data, yet no pro on even on Gerolsteiner will use one for anything longer than a TT. I went through all this and spent hundreds on useless lightweight saddles (thank god for Ebay).
You want real saddle advice? Pros often refuse to accept endorsements for saddles because they know how important a good saddle is. A Road racer will spend 6 hours a stage on a saddle for a month. Look through what they use, the commonality is the old, heavy, Selle Italia Flite, even on teams sponsored by other saddles. Recently it's the Fizik Airione, San Marco Aspide and the Italia SLR. None of these have cutouts.
Armstrong refused to ride anything other than a San Marco Concor -no cutouts, no gel, no BS. Boonen rides San Marco Regal -same thing.
Read these papers, from an independent source:
Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2003 Feb;35(2):327-32.
Int J Impot Res. 2002 Dec;14(6):513-7.
And others conclude that saddles don't matter as much as seating position. Riders who ride sitting up with high bars are putting too much weight on their butts. Riders with higher cadence and more time spent climbing off the saddles or in the drops have no problems with comfort or blood flow. Too much padding is not good, it chokes of blood vessels, and overall saddle spring is important, as well as ability to move in the saddle (i.e, airione, Flite, Aspide or SLR). Most studies published to date are only looking at sedentary riders, i.e. policemen and weekend riders. If you are stuck in one position, sitting upright, the SMP may help, but this is not good riding technique. At full cadence, you should straddle the saddle, no sit on it. It's a saddle, not a seat. Adjust your style, not your saddle. Saddle problems at my club always come from guys who ride their bars too high.
