Ask anyone who has gone to see a serious Bike-Fitter, and they will probably will often say: They wanted me to change my saddle. I almost re-financed the house to pay for it.
And honestly, there’s every chance they are talking about me.
If you don’t want to change, that’s ok. But I will do my best to show you what your current saddle is promoting, and why I suggest SMP (and other posturepedic saddles).
Monarch of bike fitting, Steve Hogg, also shares the same opinion, and its not a difficult relationship to understand. Your ability to sit in the best exit angle from the saddle (torso position/anterior pelvic rotation), relies on you pushing your most sensitive parts towards the saddle. Nobody wants to hurt the second most sensitive part of the human body (behind the ego).
Without anterior pelvic rotation, and by sitting on the widest part of the saddle with the widest part of your pelvis, all of the forward bending motion is done by the spine.
In short, you are generally doing a great job to mimic the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
Typical response will include:
a) I used to go numb, but not any more.
b) But mine has a cut out, see.
c) But that doesn’t match my bike.
Answers
a) you probably had great posture to begin with as its natural, and have ruined it in order to stop your pain
b) Your cut out isn’t really the same. Kind of like offering someone the world and handing them the atlas.
c) I don’t care what matches your bike if it meets your expectations from my work. The ugliest thing on a bike is an ugly position, and the ugliest thing of all is a bike in the garage because it hurts the rider.
Im sorry posturepedic saddles cost as much as they do, truly. But my promise, is that its better for your on bike posture than 99% of saddles on the market.
