Your saddle is one of the easiest things to upgrade to save weight and improve comfort.
Few component changes constitute a genuine upgrade as much as a new saddle. The right seat can lop a substantial amount of weight off your bike, and make for a more comfortable ride at the same time.
Fizik Kurve Snake Aluminium saddle - underside
In the last few years saddle designers have become very adept at blending features that both reduce weight and improve comfort. Most of the improvements have come from composite materials that allow carefully tuned flex in a very light hull so the saddle better absorbs shock and moves with you as you pedal.
On top of a lightweight hull, you'll usually find a thin layer of very dense foam and/or gel. This helps spread your weight over the hull, but with modern flexible hulls it's less important than it used to be. Some very light saddles do without it altogether, and even manage to be fairly comfortable anyway.
The search for better foams and gels has even led to saddle makers branching out into other fields. A few years ago, Selle Royal, owner of Fizik, span off a subsidiary company to make memory foam pillows and mattresses incorporating the Technogel material it originally developed for saddles.
Lighter rail materials make a big difference to saddle performance too. The slight flex of titanium rails helps absorb shock, while carbon fibre rails save save a lot of weight.
Selle Italia Flite Tekno Flow saddle - underside
You’ve never had a wider choice of saddle shapes and widths. Companies like Specialized and Bontrager make their performance saddles in a range of widths, Fizik tailors its designs to a rider’s flexibility and Charge offers saddles in three width classes and each model in three different shapes.
To help navigate this thicket of choices and find the right saddle for you, you’ll probably want to quite literally get your bum into a bike shop and get fitted for your saddle with one of the measuring devices many saddle makers now supply their dealers. This will tell you the spacing of your sit bones, the first thing you need to know to get a saddle that fits and will therefore be comfortable.
If it’s on offer, take up any chance to test-ride a saddle. The only way to be sure a saddle is right for you is to ride it for long enough for your bum to get used to it.
A typical stock saddle on a £1000 bike weighs about 300g, so for each of the saddles below we’ve calculated the Hairsine ratio – the grams saved per pound cost. This gives an indication of value for money, at least from the ‘lighten your bike’ perspective.
12 great performance saddles
B'Twin 900 Sport — £19.99
Weight: 247g Hairsine ratio: 2.65
BTwin 900 Sport Bike Saddle
The B'Twin 900 Sport Saddle is an own-brand product from sporting megastore Decathlon, designed for 'sport' bikes rather than, say, leisure or commuting, hence the slim profile and narrow nose. It's comfortable, reasonably lightweight, pleasing to the eye and remarkably good value.
It’s not featherweght, but for 20 quid you don’t expect it to be. The weight is pretty reasonable and it’s a very comfortable saddle. We used it for short training rides, and for a couple of more relaxed 100-mile outings as well. After a month of using it, our tester decided he liked it so much he left it on his bike.
Read our review of the B'Twin 900 Sport
Selle San Marco Concor Racing — £39.99
Weight: 200g Hairsine ratio: 2.50
Selle San Marco Concor Racing Fluoro Flash Edition 2.jpg
The rebirth of a classic design from the late 1970s, the Selle San Marco Concor Racing Fluoro Flash Edition is a firm, light, racing-orientated saddle.
It's firm enough to provide a solid power base but offers enough flex to provide stability even on the longest of rides. It's a well made, supportive ride at a reasonable price.
Read our review of the Selle San Marco Concor Racing
Cosine Race Carbon — £41.99
Weight: 200g Hairsine ratio: 2.38
Cosine Race carbon.jpg
The top of Wiggle's range of own-brand saddles, this is an amazing deal for a saddle with carbon fibre rails. We haven't tested this particular model, but we liked its cheaper kid brother, the titanium-railed Sprint, which is staggeringly cheap at just £14.99
With its central cutaway, and rails Wiggle describes as having "calibrated stiffness for vibration damping", this should be a shade more suitable for endurance riding than the Sprint Titanium, but it's still very much a saddle for going fast.
Bontrager Serano RL — £89.99
Weight: 225g Hairsine ratio: 0.83
Bontrager Serano RL saddle
Bontrager's Serano saddle draws on a design that has been around for many years, which is why they call it a 'classic shape'.
We clocked several hundred kilometres and didn't think twice about the Serano, and our tester felt no need to rush back to his old saddle. We're willing to bet this saddle shape will work for a lot of people; it simply supports the bottom so well and provides adequate padding in the key areas.
It's available in three widths: 128, 138 and 144mm. A Bontrager dealer will be able to help you find the right one for your sit bones.
Read our review of the Bontrager Serano RL
Specialized Women’s Ruby Expert — £99.99
Weight: 205g Hairsine ratio: 0.95
Specialized Ruby Expert saddle
There aren't many performance saddles aimed at women. Saddle makers tend to go for width and padding when making women's saddles, which doesn't make for low weight.
In a small field, this is an excellent saddle. It's available in a choice of widths including a properly narrow 130mm to suit your style of riding and just as importantly your sit bones too. It's a firm saddle, but very light. In comparison with most female specific saddles, it's a pared down seat, ideally suited to aggressive road riding and racing.
With the trademark BG cut-out, it's designed to relieve pressure where it's needed without sacrificing ride efficiency. Hollow titanium rails help keep the weight down, and at just 205g for the 143mm size that we tested, it's definitely one of the lightest women's saddles on the market. The cushioning is placed exactly where you need it to support your sit bones, alleviating any discomfort or feeling of pressure.
This saddle is at its most comfortable when riding in a stretched forward position, but still gives all-round day long comfort too. There was little feeling of loss of power, with the saddle remaining a background feature of the ride, rather than making its presence actively known. Given the choice of widths, this is a good option for any female road rider looking for a comfortable performance saddle.
Read our review of the Specialized Women’s Ruby Expert
Fizik Antares R5 with K:ium rails — £105.95
Weight: 175g Hairsine ratio: 1.18
Fizik Antares Saddle
For riders with intermediate flexibility, the Antares is a light, comfortable road saddle with a good depth of padding. The K:ium rails — Fizik's hollow titanium alloy — help keep the weight down while it's comfortable thans to the Wingflex feature it shares with other saddles in the family.
Your weight is carried primarily on your sit bones which are easily supported by the wide rear section, but the dense foam and flex in the shell do a good job of cushioning the road shocks and vibrations. The padding remains thick all the way up the nose, allowing you to move forward for those long turns in the drops or big climbs in comfort, a welcome change for a lightweight saddle.
Read our review of the Fizik Antares R5 with K:ium rails
Fabric Scoop Flat Pro — £115
Weight: 190g Hairsine ratio: 0.96
Fabric Scoop Flat Pro saddle.jpg
Fabric offers three versions of the 143mm wide Scoop: flat, shallow and radius. If you want something wider, there’s the 155mm Cell, while the 134mm ALM is your choice if you want something narrower. There isn't much padding, but there is loads of flex in the one-piece base and it's this flex that really provides the core of its magnificent comfort. The carbon rails provide a surprising amount of flex too.
The real beauty of the Fabric Scoop is the construction. The waterproof microfibre cover isn't stitched or stapled into place, it's moulded to a one-piece nylon base. It's really very impressive and if you get the chance to fondle one in your bike shop you really should, it's a marvellous bit of design.
Read our review of the Fabric Scoop Flat Pro
Selle Italia SLR Tekno — £309.98
Weight: 96g Hairsine ratio: 0.66
Selle Italia SLR Tekno saddle
The Selle Italia SLR Tekno is an extremely lightweight saddle although its lack of padding makes it feel firmer than most so it has to fit you very well if you're going to stay comfortable on longer rides.
The SLR Tekno's main selling point is its weight. Ours hit the scales at just 96g (Selle Italia claim 90g). You could reasonably say that anything under 200g falls into the lightweight category, sub-150g is superlight, and below 100g is nuts.
We can't say this is among the most comfortable saddles we've ever used but it's far from the least. It feels firm but we could live with it easily enough, especially when used on a bike with a fairly flexible 27.2mm diameter seatpost. We know of people who rack up 100-milers on this saddle and think nothing of it. We'd save it for race day. I'd certainly use it for a crit or a short road race where weight is a more important factor than long-ride comfort. You might be saving just 100g or so over a regular lightweight saddle, but if you're a weight weenie focusing on marginal gains it all counts.
Read our review of the Selle Italia SLR Tekno
Selle Italia Flite Tekno Flow — £241.49
Weight: 137g Hairsine ratio: 0.67
Selle Italia Flite Tekno Flow saddle
The Selle Italia Flite Tekno Flow saddle is an updated classic that's lost weight and some of the usual depth of cushioning, and gained a slightly flatter and wider shape. It’s a lightweight saddle with a fairly shallow amount of padding, but the flex in the shell, especially through the central section, means it feels firm rather than harsh.
At its £313.99 RRP this is the most expensive saddle we’ve ever tested, but it can be found a lot cheaper than that eye-watering figure.
Read our review of the Selle Italia Flite Tekno Flow
Prologo Zero C3 Nack — £239.90
Weight: 164g Hairsine ratio: 0.57
Prologo Zero C3 Nack
The Prologo Zero C3 Nack is a light, thinly cushioned and beautifully finished saddle, although it's an expensive one. The fairly shallow cushioning means that the it’s quite a firm saddle, although flex in the base – not loads, but some – helps smooth over road vibration and takes the edge off bigger hits.
We didn't find its firmness to be a problem, though. It was perfectly comfortable for both short and long rides, although it's safe to say that if you're after a soft, deeply cushioned saddle, this isn't the one for you.