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Old 12-02-21, 02:14 PM
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Trakhak
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Originally Posted by 63rickert
Carbon fiber saddle have been available for over twenty years now. Almost all of them flex. They are not significantly different from a 1958 Unica Nitor #55 made from nylon. Except that they are lighter. Basically all nylon shell saddles go back to the Unica Nitor whether or not padding has been added.

Why would an unpadded saddle automatically be uncomfortable? Leather saddles are unpadded. Leather saddles have been with us since there were bicycles. If no padding saddles did not work bicycles would have died before they were born.
Quoted for truth. I raced on a Helyett track bike with a green Cinelli/Unicanitor plastic saddle from 1964 to about 1969, when I got a Raleigh Professional (one of the white Cino Cinelli-designed ones as used at the '64 Tokyo Olympics) with a Brooks Professional saddle. The Brooks Pro was, if anything, harder than the Unicanitor.

I suspect that the Unicanitor (which, like the Brooks Pro saddle, is still available, at Universal Cycles and elsewhere; get one for your Eroica bike!) was designed when someone observed that nylon sheets of a certain thickness flex identically to a broken-in saddle such as a Brooks or an Ideale, and without the need for a break-in period.

Ha! Just realized that my sadly neglected '60s Peugeot track bike has, in addition to a complete French Campagnolo track group and a butted 531 frame, a Unicanitor saddle, covered in what I dimly remember was referred to in the ads of the time as "buffalo leather." No padding, of course.

Last edited by Trakhak; 12-02-21 at 02:18 PM.
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