Looking for just the right bike saddle to complete your dream cycling build? The selection of worthy riding thrones for your personal bicycle kingdom can feel more of a challenge than the grand fondo you just signed up for! Bike saddles are one piece of gear you seriously do not want to mess up on, since your backside will be in contact with your bike saddle for most of the ride. You'll want to find that most comfortable saddle you can, for the right style of riding you do. The saddle should survive the harshest of rides you do, and it wouldn't be worse if it isn't a boat anchor between your legs. Let's delve deeper into the what and how we tested bike saddles.
Related: How to Choose a Bike Saddle
Comfort
Bike saddles, and thus what makes a bike saddle comfortable to you, is a personal thing. Finding the most comfortable saddle first starts with researching trends in the industry and scouring customer reviews: what are companies offering, and are they being accepted by the public at large? Over the years, we've also compiled a list of details that we look out for when we closely examine a bike saddle. The padding on a saddle is one of the obvious features most people look for, and we agree it can be an important part of what makes a saddle comfortable. But it's always in the details: how you're planning to ride, how much padding is found, and where its found all play a key role. More likely than not, a road bike saddle is more comfortable with minimal padding placed in specific areas, rather than thinking, “more is better”. The shape of a bike saddle also plays a huge part in the comfort and saddles are complex, three-dimensional objects, so we take into account many aspects.
Performance
Performance is, of course, the most exciting metric to test, as it lets us go full gas, seeing exactly how a bike saddle supports impedes our need for impressive speed, except cornering, and tricky tracking. We took every saddle out for multiple spins for different tests in as many different conditions as possible, to see which ones perform the best and try to figure out why. Like many bike parts, the more confidence-inspiring a saddle is to a rider, the better the rider will perform. Stiffer saddles with just the right amount of padding generally are our darlings out on a ride.
Versatility
Most of the saddles in this lineup are specifically made for the road, but we wanted to know how all of them would work past their sweet spot. So, we took them up our favorite hill climbs and down our secret gravel road grooves. If there was a patch of single track we could use as a shortcut to work, we gave it our all. We sprinted to our favorite imaginary finish lines, and grinded up both impressively majestic hill climbs as well as some gnarly B roads. We sought out surprises our saddles would reveal. Our dream was to find a saddle that would work for as many different jobs as we could hand them.
Durability
We took our metaphorical gloves off when testing the durability of the bike saddles in the review, not being afraid to get a little dirty in our riding style and conditions. Would a saddle completely fall apart if ridden in the race or snow? Would it last in our surprisingly abusive commuter rides? Would it make it through our favorite lunchtime trail ride? We noted user complaints, marketing claims, and confirmed that any feature that enhanced or detracted from a saddle being a durable product was found.
Weight
Weight is one of the most straightforward and objective measurements we make on bike saddles. Bikes are expensive! And sometimes removing a little bit of weight can help in your local race series standings. And, a lighter weight saddle is much easier and altogether cheaper way to upgrade the weight of your entire bike than other components. Price out the next lightest drive train or wheelset if you don't believe us.
