What's the point?

[Matt2matt2002]

Wondered folks thoughts on the front pointy bits of saddles?

Out riding today around the sunny lanes of South West Scotlandshire I decided to raise my saddle a centimetre or 4. The result was an immediate effect of me feeling I was on a new bike! I had felt for sometime that my legs were not extending fully and had experienced a little lower back and knee pains. A quick look at a couple of YouTube clips resulted in the changes.

I then began to wonder why the saddle had a front pointy bit. I doesn't hold any of my weight for sure.
And I recall a distant bell ringing in my head of once seeing a saddle with no point to it.
Am I correct? Anyone such a saddle?

Thoughts on pointy bits much appreciated.

Cheers folks

Matt

[JimK]

I was walking around Manhattan on Wednesday & enjoying all the bikes. I did see one bike that had a noseless saddle.

I suppose one purpose is just to keep yourself on the bike through any crazy rough patches.

I have like 75% of my weight on my sit bones but I also have some weight on my perineum. Seems to me that having that much contact is what keeps me consistently on the saddle fore and aft. If I was just on my sit bones alone, it would seem too easy to slip forward or backward. If the sitbones were in enough of a cradle to provide fore-aft stability, that would interfere with the movement of my thighs in pedaling. Anyway there is a bit of theory for you. There sure seem to be a lot of wildly varying saddles out there, so one could have some fun experimenting!

[Andre Jute]

An old fashioned leather bicycle saddle like a Brooks isn't actually a seat, evenly supported from underneath, but a sort of mini-hammock slung between one point at the front and two at the back. The point is necessary to remove the front slinging point, a hard place, from your soft parts. So that fixed the shape of the bicycle saddle forever even when the logic of the point disappeared in the general changeover to padded saddles. Cycling is an intensely conservative pastime.

A padded or gel saddle is different, the seating surface being supported everywhere. Now the point is said to locate the rider sideways, mainly by people who are trying to find a reason for the point because they have backgrounds in rational professions. It's amusing but unlikely to be true: If the point did locate the rider sideways, it would also rub the insides of his thighs raw.

I have little experience of the noseless saddles. They seem to me at least a compromise and more likely a botch. There is no independent reason for their existence except an unreaoning fear of being emasculated. I've ridden a few but wouldn't spend my own money on them.

Instead I went all the way to an ergonomically thought-through bicycle seat. The best of this type in my opinion is the evocatively named Cheeko90. See mine in action at http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLINGsmover.html

I daily ride a modern development of a vintage bike, so more recently I chose a Brooks triple coil spring B73 saddle. But if I could find a Cheeko90 dressed up in an appropriate shade of leather, I would buy it in a flash.

Note that while I recommend the principle of the Cheeko90, and it seems at first to be sturdy, the apparent "MBtex" on the seating surface wears fast -- mine headed for recovering in under 5000km, which isn't good enough even for the €60 I paid. By comparison my superbly comfortable Brooks B72, while scarred in an accident and by zips and keychains on my street clothes, is unbowed by 6000km of hauling my 215 pounds, and clearly good for ten times that far. The B73, on sale at SJS at the time, cost £50, so it is clearly a bargain in the comfort stakes.

Andre Jute

[Danneaux]

Wondered folks thoughts on the front pointy bits of saddles?

Hi Matt!

Boy, you ask the best questions! I've pondered this one myself at times, and got my answer 30 years ago during a fast downhill along Sharps Creek, deep in Oregon's Calapooya mountains. I was on a fully-loaded tour atop a road bike in extremely rough terrain...an old logging and mining-access road. The road -- it was hardly that -- had not been maintained, and countless winter snows and spring runoff had reduced it to rough dirt with some loose gravel in-between ballast rocks the size of shoeboxes.

It was too rough to sit on the descent, so I stood with knees slightly bent, cranks horizontal, my fingers forming little rings around the brake hoods, and the saddle nose between my quads. Standing let the bike "float" beneath me and absorbed a lot of shock. The key to it all, was the pointy part of the saddle between my quadrceps. It allowed me to maintain my lateral position over the bike and saddle, and allowed me to "steer" the rear of the bike by applying body english, almost like a tilller. In the many years since, this has become my preferred mode for rough, fast descents whether loaded or unladen. It is a lot easier on equipment and rider alike, and all made possible by that pointy bit at the front of the saddle.

When unladen and cornering deeply while seated, the saddle nose is what allows me to drop my inside knee and hang off the saddle, keeping the bike located beneath me. It also helps me pull the bike upright when I exit the corner, and setup for the next one.

So, while the point ed nose of my saddle supports little if any of my weight, the sides of the saddle nose serve a regular purpose in my own riding, primarily for directional stability and as a locator while standing or seated, and as a cornering aid.

Pointless saddles would be ehm, "pointless" for me!

Hope this helps!

Best,

Dan. (..."Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Saddle nose!"*)

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/s/shadpulp.htm
http://www.elyrics.net/read/c/charlatans-uK-lyrics/the-shadow-knows-lyrics.html

[Matt2matt2002]

Thanks folks.
Always receive good answers here, and so prompt.
Quite see your err, points of view and come to think of it now, I must have used the point myself while riding. Not for weight bearing but for "balance"

Almost a shame the point doesn't have a name.
Pointless isn't it?