Yeah I still have a use for “on the rivet” sometimes.
THIS is basically why I ditched the romin, finally. I really liked it, but the nose was just too damn wide, even on the narrow width saddle.
I have a narrow waist, I just have a mini beer gut. ugh.
Concor Lite is the only thing that doesn’t feel like castration.
Nose is wide, but it’s rounded instead of flat like the romin and it lets me scoot forward or backwards depending on if I’m climbing (backwards) or on the nose in the drops chasing.
Been doing a lot more road riding, and I’ve noticed moving around on the saddle helps my knee issues pretty much vanish…well that and not having my saddle scooted so far backwards.
This is the problem when you mix tall people genes with short but lanky south asian genes. I need a tall guy bike for my 80cm saddle height. I swapped to 170’s from 175 too and they’re helping a bunch too, and letting me use a bit more setback to make the bike handle right on the road and prevent aggravating my bursitis that comes and goes.
[quote=ICU81MI]After years of searching I’ve settled on the aliante vs as my saddle of choice.
Giving advice on saddle selection always strikes me as pointless though. Everyone has different preferences for how they like their taints touched.[/quote]
Aliante for life. Seriously.
might need to sit my butt on an aliante soon
re: Aliante chat - still my all-time favorite seat. They changed it though, and now the one I like is only available as the “Gamma”, which is fine with me, especially since I have a few stashed away.
If you’re talking about the Volta, it works fine for a bit of balancing on the nose, as long as you land onto it from above, not by jamming your taint back onto it from standing. The front of the saddle looks like a cross between a jet intake and a melon baller, and does pretty much the same things as those to anything that hits it dead on.
So I’ll revise my advice: If you want both a comfortable saddle and a saucy frission of peril all in one package, get a Volta!
[quote=turpencat][quote=aerobear][quote=bobbythehawk][quote=hiljentaa]It’s absurd to me that saddles are ~$100+. It’s plastic and foam, get fucked.
Makes trying different stuff quite prohibitive.[/quote]
you know most some almost no bike shops have demo saddles, right?[/quote]
ftfy[/quote]
ftf ohio[/quote]
for real? every shop i’ve worked in for the past 10 years had demos. even the weirdo electric bike commuter shop had all the fiziks. Roadie joint i’m at now has like 30, and they get used all the time. shrug.
Bobby, you at La Bicicletta? BSP?
[quote=CheshireCat]
THIS is basically why I ditched the romin, finally. I really liked it, but the nose was just too damn wide, even on the narrow width saddle.[/quote]
In this crew. Had the 130 and it was great in most every other way except the constant rubbing was more than just a bit of an annoyance - skin was getting raw. Also remind me how tall you are? I am also in dat 80cm saddle height crew but tall with hella heel drop.
Bobby, you at La Bicicletta? BSP?[/quote]
Bici. Swapped the e-bikers for bike jocks. Nice not lifting 60# + ebikes into the work stand all day…
[quote=Roundabout][quote=CheshireCat]
THIS is basically why I ditched the romin, finally. I really liked it, but the nose was just too damn wide, even on the narrow width saddle.[/quote]
In this crew. Had the 130 and it was great in most every other way except the constant rubbing was more than just a bit of an annoyance - skin was getting raw. Also remind me how tall you are? I am also in dat 80cm saddle height crew but tall with hella heel drop.[/quote]
also to keep things on tarck, this has been my experience with the romin too. I was always trying to scoot back to get away from the nose. Swapped to the toupe and have been much happier. Also- pretty much all romins break eventually, the shell cracks about 1/3 way back from the nose.
This is great saddle info! Flites jive with my sitbones pretty well, so I have those on everything, but I have lately been wanting to look into more modern saddled with cutouts and relief channels for multi-day comfort. Seems like a Toupe would be a good alternative.
Bobby, you at La Bicicletta? BSP?[/quote]
Bici. Swapped the e-bikers for bike jocks. Nice not lifting 60# + ebikes into the work stand all day…[/quote]
Lol. I work at the other Bici in T.O
Did some dummy come in and ask for Ross last month? He e-mailed me to order a bunch of shit for pick up, oblivious to the fact I was in Toronto. Then he told me he went in and asked for me and was super embarrassed.
[quote=Roundabout][quote=CheshireCat]
THIS is basically why I ditched the romin, finally. I really liked it, but the nose was just too damn wide, even on the narrow width saddle.[/quote]
In this crew. Had the 130 and it was great in most every other way except the constant rubbing was more than just a bit of an annoyance - skin was getting raw. Also remind me how tall you are? I am also in dat 80cm saddle height crew but tall with hella heel drop.[/quote]
5’9
I know. Ridiculous.
[quote=imoscardotcom]^ agreed.
thank goodness my butt agrees with charge spoons[/quote]
Top saddle. Amazing for the price. Will be interesting to see what the new rebranding and designs are like for comfort.
So is there a good romin alternative out there?
I have the 143mm version on all my bikes and I’ve never been more comfortable with a saddle but like everyone else has already said: the nose is a little wide, they all break and I hate giving specialized my money.
Not much, a little bit depending on the setup angle. The theory (I think) is that once you get the saddle (and the other contact points) in the right place, you shouldn’t really need to be sliding fore or aft. Another interesting thing I’ve noticed with the SMP is that the shape allows a lot more (comfortable) pelvic rotation, which straightens out the spine and recruits different (more posterior chain) muscles in a way that feels good to me. So, you can’t really move fore/aft, but you can kind of rotate your pelvic angle more easily, which can sorta be a way to change up position when moving from drops to tops during a climb, etc.
SMP are expensive, but (like many brands) you can get quite a good deal from Europe-- ‘Dynamic’ (the model I have) is like 150usd from bike24.
I slide forward when I’m 90deg elbow in the drops and pushing real hard. Don’t want to give that up. Low and aero.
Only thing I can do without paying is height/inseam to frame size recommendations. What are you doing that’s more interesting than that?