crash and burn

My wife wants to ride but her saddle (Terry Butterlfy) kills her sensitive area. I found this one in a bike magazine. I cant find any reviews on it anywhere. Looks like it would work.

https://www.allaysaddles.com/line/sport.htm

Sirrobinofcoxly

Wow, that is a strange design. Interesting though.

oilman_15106

2 thoughts. Call or email the mfg of the saddle in question and find out where you can get a hands on look see. Maybe even a trial use.

Other thought that you may already have addressed. A really good pair of padded WSD bike shorts?

johnny99

First, make sure her saddle height is correct. Most people who complain about saddle pain have their saddles set too high. If her hips are rocking from side to side or her pedal stroke has dead spots at the top or bottom, fix that before you try a new saddle.

Terror_in_pink

if her soft tissue is getting smashed it means that her saddle is too narrow and shes sitting on the soft tissue instead of her sitbones. Either that, or her geometry is too aggressive or the top tube/stem is too long/ bars too low and she's stretched out and sitting on soft tissue.

I recommend taking her to a shop where they have the specialized body geometry gel sit bones measure thing and see what width saddle she needs. I have a selle italia lady gel flow and it's pretty decent. I've heard good things about the specialized jett and they come in 3 widths, so she'll be able to select the correct one after she gets measured.

good luck. Saddle issues suck.

Geoff326

do females like the specialized toupe?

Tapeworm21

Get her the Specialized Ruby saddle. It's the Toupee' for women.

crash and burn

Ive been steered it he direction of a Selle Anatomica. Reading some reviews now. I will take her to get fitted again. I took her to Performance Bike, but Im not sure they did a good job. Heck I might want to get fitted as well. The Allay saddle still looks like it would work, but she needs to be fitted. I want her as comfortable as possible.

carpediemracing 

When I look at that saddle I think of how much pressure will be on the hands (if the rider leans forward) or the tailbones (if the rider is sitting upright).

However, it might be what she needs to ride. After a bit she may find other saddles to her preference. Riding emcompasses a lot of different muscle groups and if she develops them then she may find a different position acceptable and therefore a different saddle.

I'd consider any well padded seats (even the Terry Butterfly is somewhat firm for a "new" rider), position (more upright means less pressure on the front), different shorts (my wife recently tossed her first set of shorts which she barely wore due to discomfort - she only discovered how uncomfortable they were when she bought some nice shorts), and a reminder to stand up ever 5 minutes or less.

Save the Butterfly though, as it seems that's a good saddle after the rider figures out the riding thing. The more aggressive saddles come later, if it comes to that.

Hope this helps and good luck,
cdr

bward1028

that saddle looks like it's just waiting to break

cccorlew

My wife had issues with her Butterfly and got a different Terry saddle. Damsel I think. She is much happier now.

onespeedfreak

my wife finds that saddles with a 'cut out' are very uncomfortable for her because of the "pucker" factor.

Patriot

It's tough for women to find a a saddle when starting off. The reality is, their muscles in the bum area aren't really built up strong yet, which provides her with the real cushion needed when sitting on a saddle. Hard glutes, thighs and hams are the real factor. That's why men can sit on such skinny hard saddles. It readily has to do with the strength of the muscles in your bottom.

When my wife started off, she could hardly find a saddle to ride on. So, I had her ride on a Selle Italia womens gel flow, and a Performance Forte womens contour. The gel flow is now on her MTB, and the Forte is on her trainer bike.

However, the muscles in her bottom are built up very strong after riding for the last couple of years, and she easily uses mens saddles now with a cutout. The one she actually prefers now compared to all the cushy womens saddles is this one. It's a Rav-X mens saddle with a cutout.

merlinextraligh

The allay saddle looks way too gimiicky to me.

I don't think a serious rider is very likely to like it in practice.

One, the ability to move around on the saddle is important. (i.e riding on the rivit at speed, riding on the back climbing, and just changing positions a little over the miles on a long ride.) This saddle does not seem to facilitate that.

Two, you steer the bike by pressure on the side of the saddle. (particularly riding no handed.) The no side zone again would not seem to facilitate that.

Saddles are very much personal preference items. She just needs to find one she likes and fits her(i.e. matches the width of her sitz bones.). That might be the Allay. However, there are lots of other saddles I'd try first.

Erik B

My wife loves her gel toupe.
Had a terry something or other it hurt her nethers as did the SLR, my stock Felt (slr knock off near as I can tell) and she doesn't like my Flite gel either.

HMMV

shmulb

Nashbar are carrying them as well as someone on Amazon. I just ordered one to try.

JayC

I just got one of these saddles.

Its actually pretty interesting in that you're basically riding on a formed air bladder and you can control how firm or soft it is. It's very firm in the back (think Toupe) and directly on the nose but you can really vary the firmness in the middle of the saddle.

oilman_15106

Guess my motivation is to keep this post going to get some feedback on this saddle. I agree it looks like a gimic but who knows until some ride reports come in. Have not seen it in any LBS. The concept seems to make sense but do not want to contribute any more money to my saddle testing fund without a real report.

Machka 

1. Set up the bicycle correctly for/with her.

2. Make sure her current saddle is wide enough for her sitbones.

3. Tell her to tuck her pelvis under and tighten her abs when she rides, so that she is perching on her sitbones, not resting on the middle part. Ideally the middle areas should barely touch the saddle at all.

JayC

I rode mine once and took it off. Its comfortable.. really comfortable but I felt like I was sliding around on the thing all the time and constantly having to scoot back. I might could have put it nose up a little and solved the problem or maybe even played with the air pressure some more and got it right.

Ill probably revisit it one day.. I dont have all that much in it so it doesnt kill me to just let it sit in my toolbox.