In todays post, Precision Cycle Fit take a look at whether perceived body type is a good predictor for appropriate saddle width with some surprising results that could help you find more power and comfort.
I’m your typical male cyclist: 5’9, 70kg with a slim, athletic build and a penchant for sexy, lightweight parts.
Since my formative years of cycling were the early 1990’s this naturally meant my saddle of choice was the Selle Italia Flite Titanium. The Flite really was an iconic saddle. So iconic that you can still buy the exact same saddle today.
Back then we didn’t consider whether a saddle was the right width or not. Racy cyclists had narrow, lightweight saddles, leisure riders had fatter and heavier saddles.
Nothing really changed until Terry introduced the Liberator saddle with a slot to reduce numbness in both men and women. Now we know a lot more and saddle manufacturers usually produce saddles in three widths:
130 - 135mm
140 - 145mm
150 - 155mm
Each manufacturer has their slight variation on this so it might be 135mm, 143mm of 152 mm, measured at the widest point of the saddle towards the rear. Oh, and then there are the outliers such as Brooks which are very narrow at the nose and wide at the rear, and those with ‘2-pronged noses’ such as ISM which are the opposite.
Measuring your sit bones exactly is quite an intrusive procedure so it’s great that there is also a simple DIY method involving a piece of kitchen foil and your stairs.
Place the foil on a step, sit on it, rock around a bit to make two indentations, find the two centers of the indentations, and measure between them to find you ‘sit bone width’, or a good approximation of.
The tools you will find in bike shops and fit studios are slightly more sophisticated versions of the stair-foil method. They are easier to use as you sit on a gel pad which has a grid underneath so both the indents and measurements are easy to see. We use the Pro Saddle Measurement Cube at Precision Cycle Fit and the ranges / recommendations are:
Having tried the foil method before buying the proper tool, I was shocked to find my sit bone measurement was around 12.5cm, so according to the rule of thumb of ‘add 20mm to your sit bone width to get your saddle width’ meant I should have been on a 145mm wide saddle.
So, I bought the tool, and it told me the same thing! Obviously, it was this that had been holding back my ultimate performance all these years. I jest but persevere because what I discovered was very interesting.
Keen to understand what this would mean from a ride-feel perspective, I brought my Kinesis R2 on which I’d been riding around 80 miles per week throughout winter to the studio to investigate.
Since around 2005, I’ve been riding Selle Italia SLR saddles for everything other than TT / Tri. Mostly with the ‘Flow’ or ‘Superflow slot and most recently the ‘Boost’ models with a shorter nose. I’ve also been experimenting with the Novus Boost Superflow on my MTB and Gravel bikes which is more comfort-oriented and thus well suited to the Kinesis.
Being slim and racy, I obviously started out by buying the narrower 130mm wide S3 model (bottom in photo below). To conduct the experiment, I bought the exact same saddle in an L3 size with a 145mm max width.
Without going down the rabbit hole of saddle shape and geometry, I popper the L3 on in the exact same location of the S3 and… didn’t like it.
But then I took it (the wider L3 saddle) out on the road and straight away I could feel how much more support it was giving me. I’d never felt unsupported before, but all of a sudden, I was more planted on the bike and noticeably more powerful.
So, I’m sold. I’ve just bought a new SLR Boost Superflow in an L3 width for my road bike and we’ll see if the same result holds true in a racier position.
Back to where we started: Skinny Body, Skinny Saddle? Nope.
Comments