A New Perch

<=== Bontrager Inform RL saddle

I got a comment on the saddle seen on my Pofahl yesterday, (you guys must be clicking on the pics to enlarge them) and thought I'd give you my initial thoughts.

If you need to know all the technical stuff, go here. I will also be posting updates there on The Bike Lab on this saddle.

Initially, the saddle sizing system seemed a bit hokey to me. I mean, all you do is sit down on this "gel" pad and they measure your sit bones? Okay, that might be helpful, but as you all know, a saddle is much more than something that is "wide/narrow enough". I was a bit skeptical about the saddles shape and how it would work.

It's pretty flat. I usually don't go for such saddles, (with the exception of Fizik's Arione) and generally I don't find them (flat saddles) to be a good fit for me. The other thing was that when I got "fitted" I found out that I was borderline on the medium/large sizes. Bontrager advises you go to the size larger in such cases. I thought that the large size width saddle looked too wide and that it might be a chafer. I have not ridden a saddle this wide before with the exception of my Selle Anatomica saddle, but that's a leather job with rivets, so it's a whole different animal.

Well, I have a couple short rides on the Inform RL already and I can say that it makes you sit right on your skeletal structure as advertised. It seems that the pressure points are different than what I've experienced before, especially regarding the "soft tissue" areas. My only concern now is whether or not the concentration of the pressures of supporting Guitar Ted on the sit bones for a long period of time is a good thing. It doesn't seem as though, (at this point) that the stiffness of the saddles shell will be "long ride friendly". We'll see what happens after the magic three hour barrier has been passed. It seems saddles can be okay up until that time barrier, but afterwards the pain can set in.

So, that's the scoop on that saddle so far. Stay tuned for more as I can gather ride time on it.