We used to call these big fat seats "sofas".

Some of them were probably originally for stationary bikes. Stationary bikes, before the advent of spin classes and Peloton used to have beefy seats and an upright position.

There was a seat back in the 70's that was a hammock with canvas supported by a flipped upside-down drop bars. I searched the internet for this seat but could not find it, so I resorted to drawing it.



Yes, I remember a stem being used for the seat post. I believe, that this design evolved into the Bummer seat.


I've heard that they are comfortable and the handlebar part of the bars keeps your but centered and eliminate the need for a nose on the seat. I never tried one and there is a reason that they can no longer be found. I just thought it would be interesting to post here.

Perhaps some of you know more than my limited knowledge on these rare seats.

VeloMule - That handlebar hammock was originally done by a guy named (IIRC) Dan Henry. I think he made that for his recumbent bike ?

There's a modern version of the twin independent pad saddle that was popular in the late '80's.
I've come across a couple of them, and always resold them apart from the bike they came on.

Modern Alibaba version

That one is a whole living room all in one.

It took me a while. Sometimes I see details, sometimes they go right over my head. Really "Assman"? Embossed in leather and steel!


You may be right about that. This is getting me to reach into the deep recesses of my brain. Weird. And while we sometimes think that everything is on the internet, not everything is on the internet.

I definitely am not getting the miles in that I'd like, and I do have some sympathy for wanting softer seats for less frequent use. Keeping the narrow seat, hopeful that I'd get more miles to get used to it, is not in line with the time and opportunities I've got to ride. I've thought of changing out the normal WTB Volt seat on my commuter for something that might come on an e-bike.

But the tractor seats, eesh

Noseless saddles eliminate one problem and create a few more. You may not put much weight on the nose of a saddle, but it's still important. I'm sure it increases hand pressure on the bars, probably by a lot.

Dan Henry built a couple of recumbent bikes and he might have put a Bummer-type seat on it. I remember a book that showed some of his experiments but I don’t have a copy.

In terms of the noseless/moving butt pad seats: they seemed to show up every few years at the bike shows, sell a few, then move to the blow-out pages. I recall the Easyseat showing up three separate times during my career in the bike business.

Women in the Netherlands have been using saddles without a nose for over a hundred years. They are generally referred to as rok zadels (which translates to saddles for dresses) and are usually used with step-through Oma fiets. I remember my grandmother using one back in the 60's and my mother brought one over from the Netherlands to Canada in the 70's.

Here is an example from Selle Royal: https://www.internet-bikes.com/17282...l-dames-zwart/

As a joke, I put the couch back in the used saddle bin. It came back on a bike today