Mountain Biking - Bending Saddle Rails

Hi MTBers,

I need recommendations for saddles with strong rails. Or perhaps wedging something between saddle and rails.

I've bent the rails on the saddle that came on my Giant Yukon hardtail and an ARS road saddle. Both saddles looked like they have steel rails. Although I weigh 200 pounds, I do not do big drops, and I stand on drops anyway. Probably bending on wheelies and front unweighting.

It could be your seatpost is as much as the problem as your saddle. A cheap post will bend, and not support the rails properly when stressed. You end up with a "hot spot" on the post head clamp, that puts all of the pressure on one point of the rails, causing it to bend/buckle.

Get a Thomson post. It distributes forces evenly along the rails, and is pretty much bomb-proof.

Forget about all the Titanium Rail and Scandium Rails an whatever latest and greates metal matrix is available. Stick to a seat with good old fashioned Chromoly Rails.

The benefit is you can usually find a great saddle with Chromoly rails on sale (since they are heavier than the high-zoot metal ones).

My favorite saddle was a Salsa Zona Tres that I bought on closeout for $15.00!

I have a bontrager seat post and saddle, and I just noticed I just bent the saddle rails too - do I have to buy a new post too? And if I can just buy a saddle, does it have to be a bontrager, or are they all the same?

- b

You only need a saddle, and they're all the same.

I'm not a big fan of paying too much for a saddle. $40 is a lot for me.

Many of the LBS's in my area have a used seat bin, or take-offs where people will buy a new saddle at time of purchase and leave the stock one. You can get decent saddles for $15 from those bins.