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:
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.
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:
Thanks, John. I don't care much for the idea of carbon rails, though - the one I saw appeared to have standard Ti rails.
Quoted message said:
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 would imagine that if it could be custom-moulded to the user's [censored] and the support points positioned appropriately, it could be quite a bit more comfortable.
