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Throwback saddles

Posted on 20. Mar, 2010 in Personal

Hard. Skinny. Lightweight. Minimalist. These terms describe neither my butt nor anything on which I’d prefer to sit. So the recent trend towards saddles that look like miniature Star Wars ships has left me shaking my head. See here and here. Fortunately, both Selle Italia and Selle San Marco have heeded the call of cycling’s collective consciousness that harkens back to the days before power meters, when doping was called “preparation” and saddles were built like furniture.

I’ve been riding the above Selle San Marco Regal for about a year, courtesy of MASH and BikeMine. It was released as part of SSM’s Vintage 1935 collection along with its uncle Concor and brother Rolls.

Excel Sports has reissues of both Selle Italia favorites: the Turbo and the Flite. The Turbo is a classic chunky shape along the lines of a Regal or Rolls; the Flite was really the archetype for today’s cutting edge saddles along the lines that I described at the very beginning of the post.

Of course, Selle San Marco’s answer to the Flite was my all-time favorite: the Concor Light. It’s best known for being Lance’s personal choice, even into the Comeback 2.0 era. This saddle, which I still ride (it’s going on a new bike coming soon) was manufactured in early 1998 and I bought it from International Bicycle Center in Allston, Massachusetts, while I was still in high school. One thing that I especially admired about the Concor Light was that – unlike the Flite – it came in an inexpensive version with basic steel rails instead of titanium.

What’s perhaps behind these reissues is a growing interest in the early days of cycling’s modern era. That’s what sets these apart from, say, a Brooks Swallow that began production in 1937.