With many things C&V we crave period correct, and the look of a horizontal top tube with a -17 drop stem. A positive rise stem uses less material and is stiffer AND lighter, but just doesn't look right. It looks like it belongs on a hybrid bike ridden by old people in their Florida retirement community. Its about form as much as function. We use road drop handlebars on most of our bikes when the vast majority of us can't actually ride in the drops for any meaningful proportion of our mileage on the frame sizes we think actually fit us. Most of us are perched up on the hoods and stay there throughout most rides. We like the way an aggressive racing geometry bike looks, even modern compact geometry bikes with aggressive saddle to bars drops, and massive saddle to drop position drops. We wouldn't even consider riding bikes in either the size we would properly fit to be able to comfortably ride in the position in the drops, or to use quill/stem risers. Most of us hate the look of head tube extensions on custom frames, even though those more properly accommodate recreational and competitive cycling fit for the 99% of us that don't have the fitness, flexibility, and form of professional CAT 1 roadies. We like what we like.

However, I'm going to suggest that we stop liking vintage saddles and the likes of Brooks, Ideale, and Selle Anatomica saddles with specificity. Vintage and hard leather saddles look great on the bike, in fact they look ideal, not to make a bad pun. I love my Selle Anatomica saddle and copper rivets and rails. Nothing else even comes close.

However, I've ridden on plenty of saddles that cause nerve compression and just don't adequately protect the cyclist from injury. Yes, I posted INJURY. Your bike fit and saddle shouldn't injure your health or cause inflammation of the prostrate which can lead to an increased risk of prostate cancer. Your saddle shouldn't contribute to erectile dysfunction, nerve compression or unduly restrict blood flow to your bits.

We've come a long long way in the science of bringing Urologists and test data to compare and baseline saddle design. I think its long past the point where we continue to ride art saddles like Brooks and start thinking about what really is healthy for our undercarriage. Hard leather saddles stretched across steel frames ain't healthy, and that's not-debatable. The empirical measurements show that such saddles significantly decrease blood flow to the perineal region, and specifically to the penis.

I think its time to acknowledge that there really isn't any place on a bike for a C&V saddle, which is sad, but compromising our health, increasing our cancer risk, and having a less comfortable saddle because of the way it looks off the bike is just so fallacious I don't know where to start. Rule number one in the modern context of what we've learned actually empirically measuring blood flow from cyclists positioned on different saddles should be: first do no harm.

I think C&V saddles make zero sense in that enlightened context. I think Brooks, Ideale, and Selle Anatomica saddles have to be shelved with a notion that they are neither healthy nor beneficial for the cyclist, beautiful or not.

I think the Specialized Power saddle is one of the fugliest saddles I've ever seen, but I'm considering the absurd notion of switching to them on all my bikes. I don't ride bikes to develop a large prostrate and to cause it inflammation, raising my risk for developing prostrate cancer. I don't ride bikes to increase my risk of developing sexual dysfunction. I don't ride bikes to damage my perineal nerves.

I think I'm intelligent enough to not care what something look like, ugly or not, if it prevents me from actually injuring my body in a way that other saddles just can't. Will they look good on classic and vintage bikes? Nope, and that's okay.

Specialized Power saddle review | CyclingTips

Looking over this data you'd have to be an idiot to still be riding on C&V saddles at this point:

http://www.specialized.com/OA_MEDIA/...WhitePages.pdf

Interesting backstory on the development of the saddles that minimize restricted blood flow, and how they went about actually experimenting with the different designs in a race context. One thing the piece is absolutely correct about is that Body Geometry saddles were widely panned. A lot of shops mocked the products and spread misinformation about the saddles to their customers. Which is interesting in that we'd listen to a hack making $10/hr and ignore the data coming from medical professionals and researchers, but that's cycling in a nutshell right there.

Evolution of the Specialized Romin Saddle ? Interview with Dr. Roger Minkow

Now if only Specialized would make a C&V saddle offering.

[Edit] Many posters take this discussion WAY off topic so wade through this discussion if you want to learn a lot about forum member's preferences for music, movies etc. Or to basically learn that most of them can't comprehend the literature that suggests that a cyclist can't "Feel" nerve damage happening, even on a saddle they deem comfortable. Also the medical research showing diminished perineal area blood flow used normal cycling sized cyclists NOT people my height/weight. That's lost on many responders. This discussion devolves into a "don't challenge us with anything that threatens our preconceptions." It read's like a bunch of smoker's in the 1950s in denial.