Our Opinions on bicycle saddles:

Seats are a personal thing. Ignore generalizations and marketing. Take the time to test ride on them until you find the one that fits you. We've found bike shops to be very understanding about multiple returns on saddles. We've tried various models from Terry, Avocet, Brooks, Selle Italia, Selle San Marco, Bontragger and Coda. All have quality saddles in their line. Some fit us well. Others esp. the Coda 1000 were very uncomfortable. Except for Brooks, a 20 mile test ride with stops to play with saddle position was enough to tell if a saddle was going to work out. Brooks saddles take several hundred miles to break in. The nose on a Brooks is very hard. Angling the nose down slightly took care of the problem for me but might not work for others.

Riding position maters. So a saddle that is comfortable on one bike might not work as well on another.

Saddles with a cut-out in the nose can be a good thing but the cut out saddles might not fit in other places. Another option is a saddle with a cut out in the shell like on the Avocet 02.

Not that it counts for much, but our current set-up is Brooks B17 standard in the front and an Avocet 02-40 Women's in the back. We just did a 50 mile ride and these two saddles passed the test.

Debbie adds:

The Avocet is the best saddle for me so far. I liked the Terry Liberator, but it didn't fit me. The cut-out was great though. The O2-40 has less padding but my sit bones fit the saddle so there wasn't any pain. I have no idea what it would be like on a long tour. - but I got bruises from the Liberator from an 18-mile ride. If I had narrower sit bones it probably would have worked fine. No way would I want a Brooks. I can't take even a few minutes. But Andrew really likes his.


Copyright 1999 Andrew Fischer