69chevy

And thought it looked good?


Is there a reason for the flaccid shape?

indyfabz

topflightpro

I've seen one.

I've seen some that look good, some not so much.

The shape is intended to help riders rotate their hips forward. Many (most?) do not.

zymphad

Yes and each time I see them, I figure they must have something anatomically wrong down there, and I don't know want to know what problem they have :/

Yes that is the comical side of saddles. What they were meant to do, and how people ride them are two different things. And even among pros, growing popularity seem to be Aliante, even though they are probably the most flexible cyclists. Fizik's marketing is not working even among their sponsored riders. Kinda makes you think, it's just nonsense. Plenty of the pros are riding saddles meant for Bulls, go figure.

Wildwood 

If you roll your hips forward for a more aggressive position it is more comfortable (for some). I'm undecided on the split saddle concept but it rides OK for me.

I'm not sure how the company's marketing dept describes the reason for the unusual shape.

Dan333SP

I tried one early on in my more experimental days. I hated it and sold it to some other unlucky soul.

Some people swear by them. Same with ISM and Cobb saddles. Not for me and I do think they look ugly, but you can't see it when you're sitting on it so whatever helps people get through their rides in comfort is fine by me.

largefarva

I use one now (cheaper SMP...the Extra gel) and can care less how goofy it looks. It has all but eliminated perennial pain and I can rotate my hips forward and ride in the drops a lot more comfortably now. Takes some getting used to and dialing in to get it positioned just right, but when it gets there you'll know it. When this one needs replaced I'm going to go to one of the more expensive leather SMP saddles. No need to even look at any other manufacturer, for me at least.

Darth Lefty 

It was designed on my body. Also it matches the decals and cables.

I tried one of the nicer ones at their booth at NAHBS last year and liked it even more, but it's not in the budget


Untitled by Darth Lefty, on Flickr

zymphad

Oh yes you do. You need to look at Specialized Power, does the same thing, but looks awesome. Might even do it better.

Munk69

I have an SMP Glider.. I got it mostly for rotating the hips as I am not flexible in the hamstrings. I found out that while I am not flexible, my body does not like having the hips rotated forward. I felt much more freedom of movement and oddly enough, flexibility with a Bontrager Inform saddle.

Wildwood 

Mine is not an expensive model. I picked it up at the local Performance Bike store in the mark-down bin. Obviously someone's return. T'was very affordable.

largefarva

I thought about trying a Specialized Power saddle but apparently Specialized doesn't have any sort of demo program so there's no way I could try one out for a week or so to see if it would work. So that eliminated Specialized for me in my recent saddle search.

chaadster

One might wonder whether having a 'robust endowment' invites ready apprehension of the SMP dropped nose design.

zymphad

Yeah, you have to buy. But Specialized does have a satisfaction guarantee so you can return it.

Also depends on the shop. Shop I bought mine had romjin and others available for demo, but they said they couldn't keep the POWER enough in stock and no one has returned one, so they don't have one available to demo. So I bought it, was told I could return it, had 30 days or something.

largefarva

The local Specialized shop near me made no mention of a satisfaction guarantee, so that was something I wan't informed of when talking with the guy there.

Actually, come to think about it....I do remember reading here about a satisfaction guarantee from Specialized. He said that Specialized no longer offers it any more. Said that as far as he knew they never did a demo program and the satisfaction guarantee was a thing of the past. So you buy it you better hope it works for you. I wasn't willing to make that gamble at the time.

vinuneuro

I tested a bunch of SMP saddles. They're very very good imo except for the fact that they're more suited to narrow and normal sit bone widths despite what they say.

chaadster

In addition to reducing genital compression, the SMP drop-nose also eliminates snagging shorts with it.

zymphad

This should be standard. While Fizik saddles are popular because of sponsorship among pros, but I don't see many of them in the wild. Too narrow is always the complaint. Maybe in Italy, they only have super narrow sit bones?

ptempel

Selle has a whole range of SMP saddles that I recently learned about from another thread here (forget which). This guy has some good info on selecting one and why thay have that shape:

https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com...ll-about-smps/

I'd be up for trying one. But not sure that my LBS would be willing to order one just for trial. Maybe need to find a shop that deals with them.

Edit: Got a bit of sticker shock on the lite 209 model. Saw it went for around $240 at comeptitivecyclist.com. That's a bit too rich for me...

indyfabz

fify

chaadster

Surely your sampling methods are insufficient to draw conclusions from. There are plenty of both SMP and Fizik in use here in Ann Arbor, including by me; I use Dynamic and Aliante on my two main rides.

Mybe they're more popular among educated, urban elite?

chaadster

Poor guy...you don't know what an endowment is, do you?

Darth Lefty 

There's more than he shows, too. There are hybrid and MTB models and a really goofy-looking comfort bike model.

chaadster

Selle SMP is the name of the company, not the company and a model range. SMP4BIKE is the model range being discussed; they are also an OEM supplier of more traditionally shaped saddles.

PepeM

I demoed a Power saddle. Ended up buying it. It's ok. I like the Selle Italia SLR on my other bike better, but both work fine.