New Saddle ...

... what will gilby think. I have always been a strong advocate of a Brooks saddle as seen in this old post, Tearing Myself a New Asshole, so this must seem like an absolute reversal of great past wisdom. But it's not. When I got the Surly KM, I moved my swell Brooks Saddle over to it and returned my Selle Italia Trimatic to its original home on the San Marino Yellow Bar 20 lb. roadie. After last week's ButtRendering&trade on the Selle Italia; ride, I decided to look at a new saddle.

I let the bike wizard guy talk me into looking at the Specialized saddles with the hole in the middle, which I like to refer to as the assGap™. He had me sit on an assGauge™ to determine my bony butt wants a 143 mm wide saddle and then we picked out one with gel. A Specialized Phenom. Despite my original tirade against gel, with the assGap™, the gel won't be able to wedge itself up where the sun won't shine -- so maybe I can tolerate it.

So I put it on the bike -- and have so far retired the Selle Italia Trimatic ... 2003's finest and a very popular saddle. It has Manganese gizmo-rod things and is handmade of leather and plastic in Italy, by expert seat makers. It has a couple of signs of wear after about a 1000 miles of use, and is scuffed on both ends. If you're willing to pay shipping and a hundred bucks or so -- it's yours. It's well made and although I don't like it, many people rave about it.

If I don't like the new saddle, I suppose I'll have to buy a Brooks Titanium Swallow (wholly crap, I'll need a loan), and move The Specialialized Phenom Gel over to the trek -- which has a generic foamy crapSaddle™. It will be an improvement.

Tearing Myself a New Asshole

My Marin™ road bike came with a Selle™ Italia® saddle, a favorite in it's day, but really an ass ripper unless you wear those gotdamned padded shorts, which I really prefer never to wear. It's quite sleek and light in the roadie correct (RC™) way. At 250g, it's dandy if your about to ride 100km in those padded shorts and orange™ jerseys.

What about those of us in street clothes with a bony™ ass sit bones. An old favorite among the bicycle enjoyment (BE™) set is the Brooks™ Professional Saddle. It has a nice ring to it -- "Professional" -- like I might ride a bike like I have a job. At 538g it is a heavy load, and not at all RC. Once I have loaded 39 lbs (7,662,657g) into my PC carrying, camera toting, rain gear, tennis shoes, xtra socks, lumber carrying messenger bag. I am sure that my legs won't notice the extra weight.

For those of you that are metric dysfunctional, 250g is about eight ounces. That's quite a bit less than my wallet. Possibly less than one of these. Here is the seat in a most un-RC orientation. Other advocates of the Brooks™ saddle have done this, put perfectly good Brooks saddles on there otherwise racing bikes.

I can always change it if I ever have to ride a lot of miles in pink™ padded shorts.

My bony™ ass thanks me.