no sweat

I was pretty happy with the old Selle Italia Flight on my road bike until I got fit enough to drop the stem and add aero bars. I have about 7 cm of drop from saddle to bar top, about 4.5cm from saddle to arm rest of aero bars. Now I'm getting numbness on rides over 2 hours and it's time to put a stop to this. I tend to split time fairly equally between hoods, drops and aero bars. FWIW, I'm 54, ride about 150 miles a week, flexible enough to put my palms flat on the floor with locked knees. I suspect the problem with my current saddle is the big bulbous rivet jammed up my perineum when I'm on the aeros and drops. Top of saddle is basically level.

Am I on the right track with something like a Fizik Arione VSX? I'd prefer to keep a traditional road saddle shape if possible (and narrow is good for me). The various TT specialty saddles seem like they would be awfully compromised for anything other than TT/Tri stuff.

RISKDR1

I am not sure you need to be that low on the aero bars. Even when racing the Kilo on the track I never ran them that low. having said that, I was not that fast. That of course was not your question though. I use a Brooks B17 imperial with aero bars. It is well broken in and very comfortable. It is cut out and is available in a narrow cut.

Brooks recommends that the saddle be about the same hight as the bars. That places your aero bars somewhat higher. I like them that way. I use them more as an alternate riding position than for aerodynamics but I get a definate benefit in speed. If you are not planning on racing time trials or triathlons I think you don't really need to get so low. I found that very uncomfortable.

fietsbob

Maybe a Triathlon saddle ?
(customer had one ) nose of saddle is soft sweat absorbant neoprene foam .

Firmer in the back under the sit bones ..
no cut out hole, then the nose has to be wider..

no sweat

Going to try Fizik Arione VSX. If that doesn't work, next candidate is some variety of Specialized Romin.

jyl

Suppose you tilt your existing saddle slightly nose down? Try and see.

no sweat

Tried the Arione VSX this afternoon. Non-starter. I knew that in three pedal revolutions, but I rode it 20 miles anyway. Ouch. I think I can honestly say that it's the saddle most incompatible with my anatomy I have ever ridden. I tried slightly nose down, more nose down, no help. I really liked the planform of the Arione (legs don't even know it's there), so this was disappointing. I suspect the problem may be that I wasn't keeping 100% perfectly centered over the (extremely well defined and rather sharp edged) channel, or perhaps the channel just isn't wide enough. In any event it wasn't great on smooth roads and it was downright painful on rougher ones. I put the Italia back on and started playing with pitch. With the nose of the saddle pointed roughly at the handle bars it works better for sure and at that angle I'm still well planted with no tendency to slide forward. Not sure this is my 100% solution, but it's worth a hundred miles to test.

Carbonfiberboy 

You might give this a try:
Forté Pro SL Saddle
If it doesn't work, send it back for a refund. This is similar to what I'm running also with a bit of drop to the arm rests.
I also hated the Arione.

no sweat

At $45, why not.... It might be a player: it's a very similar shape to the Italia on the bike now, but with a larger cutout. Thanks for suggestion.

mikiek

First off as a general rule, don't make that big of an adjustment at once. How come you came up with that idea to begin with? If you really want to change the drop do it a little at a time. You'll start to know when it gets uncomfortable.

I had a Cobb saddle when I added clip-ons to my bike. After a talk with John Cobb the suggestion was to move the saddle forward.

The biggest problem I had/have is that it is very hard to have a good road fit AND a good aero fit. You may end up having to compromise with neither being perfect.

Whatever you do, go at it slow! Let your body adjust to the new position over a few weeks.

no sweat

I made the position adjustment over the course of 1500 trainer miles this Winter. The only issues I have had with the drop change are a little stiff neck initially on the road (road != trainer) and then saddle numbness with rides over about 90 minutes and weekly mileage over about 150 (again, road is different).

I'm motivated to try to sort this out because saddle numbness aside, the variety of available arm/hand/torso positions works great for me.

My current guess is that I need a saddle with some rocker and a large cutout that goes all the way to the nose. I have a Selle SMP Dynamic on order. Cobb is somewhere on the list of things to try.

no sweat

45 mile test ride on SMP Dynamic today. As with the Fizik, I was pretty sure I had the answer in three pedal revolutions. Only today it was a happier answer!! Time will tell, but I think this one is going to work. It does a remarkable job (for me) accommodating everything from steep climbs on bar tops to tucking into the aero bars. Well done, Selle SMP. Guys that like to move around on the saddle because they just like to move around won't like it. Very *small* changes in posture produce *large* changes in support. The guy that wants to fine tune his support without moving around a lot (that's me) will love it. Well, except for the price.

no sweat

Off the bike for 5 days due to lingering numbness left over from old saddle. Finally back to normal, rode 61 miles this afternoon on the Dynamic. And it's all good!!