Hot or Not? Anyone has these saddles and can comment on them?

1) Selle Italia XO Flow Transam Saddle - Black $40





2) Selle Italia Shiver Gel-Flow Saddle - Black $68

Neither one does a thing for me... Actually I am ashamed to admit I opened this thread.

Ignore the bikeforums copycat ******* above. Did you check roadbikereview.com? usually relatively useful

On my way to there and have a look! Thanks

Vulgarity, and derogatory remarks seem more unoriginal than my open lack of lust for generic saddles. Typically I do something that justifies this type of language... at least I answered his question instead of sending him somewhere else.

I had the top saddle without the cut-out...numbness within 5 miles. Of course, with the cutout who knows.

Yep. that's a saddle. now, is either one comfortable for you?

I want to know but they are not available in my LBS. Online only I guess.

hush my son

I don't like the size of the hole in 1)

That was my first thought also. It also looks like the first might be a bit wide in the mid section. Looks very uncomfortable.
The second looks more reasonable.

If that's your price range, and those two aren't available to try out, you might as well try the Forté Pro SLX from performance bike. Its on sale now, and on average has good reviews.

I have absolutely no personal experience with the saddle, though.

Ever since I really bad experience with an old specialized BG saddle with a cutout (felt like I got castrated) I dont think Ill ever try another saddle with a hole in my lifetime!! I bought a brooks swift ti 2 years ago and hoping I have it for 20 barring any circumstances like crash or theft....

I never buy a saddle based on looks, I buy what works for me. My previous saddle was great for the sit bones but horrible on the soft tissue. So, I bought an SMP saddle, which looks simular to the saddle in your photo, and the numbness in the soft tissue was gone.

Try to find a place that will let you try the saddle before you buy it.

Wow. Battle of the noobs.

How about you both STFU?

OP, saddles are way too personal to get advice over the internet. What works well for one person is another's ass hatchet.

They look like black leather vaginas...or not. The point is saddle comfort isn't standard as umd pointed out. Search the forum and you'll find loads of threads where people compare saddles; bottom line is you have to try them to get a sense which one is to your liking. If you have the money to spend then check out Competitive Cyclist who have a saddle demo program, otherwise check your LBS's policy regarding saddle returns that way you can try one out and return it if it becomes a torture device.

Based on looks alone, which is all I have to go by, I'd go with the first one because I like the way the rails are a bit lower profile and the nose isn't quite as pronounced. But like everybody says.. you really need to ride them.

The competitive cyclist demo program is a bit pricy. I looked into it and it was $75 for the 10 day demo (honestly not sure if they apply any of that towards a saddle purchase or not). But looking at your price range, paying for a demo where the cheapest saddle is about 200 bucks is likely beyond that budget.

Check out the saddles at Neuvation. They are budget priced (~50-80 bucks) copies of high end saddles and they have a no questions asked (X amount of days, though) return policy. So you may be out some shipping money, but you would be able to try a few things out before you decided on one.

The best way I ever found a saddle was to buy one used on ebay, try it for a few weeks, then buy another one and sell the definite losers. When I found a winner, I would have bought a brand new one if the used one wasn't in great shape. In the end, you end up paying pretty much just shipping for each saddle you try.

As cheaper saddles go, this one at Performance has served me well, and gets good reviews here.

This.

Either of those look OK to me, roughly similar to what I'm riding.

All of the above. You won't know until you try the saddles and I like urbanknight's approach. The vast majority of house branded saddles are made by Velo. The brand at Pricepoint is Sette. Their prices are very good and they have every model to match Performance, Neuvation, Nashbar, etc.

+1, that's the exact route I took too. If it's not an unbearable pain-in-the-behind but not the most comfortable thing, I kept riding on it while ebay-ing for the next model to try. In the end, I broke even or +/- $10 from trying 8 saddles.