sitting on my disappointment

My cheap saddle isn't great. It was OK, but on long, hard uphills I slide into a position that winds up being painful after several minutes; the pain goes away once I am no longer on the hill, but it takes time and cuts into the pleasure of the ride. I decided to look for a better quality saddle.

I don't give a skinny rat's patootie about light racing saddles; the riding I do is long and medium-paced. I can afford weight in a saddle. I've looked at saddles by Brooks and Velo Orange, but the leather on both of these needs to be protected from the weather, and both need breaking in. The Selle An-Atomica supposedly needed no breaking-in period, their "Watershed" leather needs no care according to their directions, and they have a long page of recommendations from riders.

Since I always shop for price, I looked for a good one. I found a site selling this $179 saddle for over 20% off, and ordered from them. Selle An-Atomica decided they didn't like the discounted sale, and initially refused to ship; I got the saddle, but, apparently, only after negotiations from the principal of the vendor. The shipment, therefore, took a while to come. (I have other problems with the vendor: I'd like to buy more from them in order to pay them back for going to bat on this, but the lack of sub-categories in their shopping-cart system makes it difficult to find and compare specific things they sell.)

The saddle came. It requires setting up, and then much adjustment to find the perfect "sweet spot" (this is not a problem; in fact, it makes sense to me). I put it on, and it really is flexible under my posterior. The slot allows the two sides to flex independently, although at a level of tension that feels correct, the slot needed to be cut wider (the instructions that came with the saddle said this might be the case and suggested how to do it). I put the bike on a trainer, and started playing with fore-and-aft, rotational, height, and tension settings. It felt pretty good - not as good as my no-longer-available BG2 at about 1/5 the price of the Selle An-Atomica, but pretty good.

On Saturday, I went out on a group ride. At about mile 25, I started getting pains inside my right thigh as if I were getting electric shocks. I lowered the saddle and made it home, and over the next 24 hours, I researched the problem.

It turns out the Selle An-Atomica Titanico (the only model still sold, as far as I can see) is wider than any of the other saddles I have except for my gel-heavy cruiser saddle, and the edge of the Titanico is cut to an edge that was digging into my thigh. The instructions say that pain in the thigh might be reduced by lowering the saddle... but to avoid the edge, I'd have to lower the saddle by over 15 cm or 6 inches. That would be ludicrous.

In my researches, I had found this thread on the Mountain Bike Review forum, where a member/reviewer made a mod to the saddle by punching holes in the side and tying the side together. Another member posted that “the flare has created the queen mother of all saddle sores”, which is similar to the problem I described. In the opinion of the first poster, this mod should fix that.

So I punched some holes in the side of my saddle and used, first nylon string, then zip ties to pull in the ends. The zip ties work (and have the advantage of locking and not loosening; I could not get a consistent tightness with the string). They’re not pretty, but they work. I can loosen the tension bolt so I get the benefit of the separate flexing of the two sides (although I still need to cut away more of the slot), and I can keep the saddle high enough so I get the maximum power from my pedal stroke. The leather does appear to be waterproof, at least on top; I rode in wet shorts yesterday while I was testing the mod on the trainer (the underside laminate layer does not appear to be weatherproof; water soaked into that).

We’ll see how this works. I have another metric century training ride for Anchor House this Sunday, so it will be clear whether or not there’s an improvement (and there will be a SAG driver to pick me up if it does not!).

I must say, I’m disappointed with Selle An-Atomica. They will not allow discount sales… but the supposed “most comfortable saddles” need this kind of modification to avoid “the queen mother of all saddle sores”. I probably can make it work (and, since I want a flexible saddle, I will probably have to), but with their demands and advertising, I would think such modifications should not be necessary.