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Last summer I bought a Selle Italia SP-01 for my gravel bike and I loved it... Well I still love it. So when I got my new racing bike I thought I would put the same saddle on that and so I bought another oneÂ
I'll give it a few more rides, but I have to say it's not the most comfortable of saddles on my race bike. On my aluminium gravel bike it's lovely. On my carbon pinarello X7 the same apparent saddle is really uncomfortable. Strangely, they feel different, the one on my gravel bike seems to have a much rougher surface so you don't slide around, whereas the one on my carbon race bike seems to be much more slippery. Could this be just different years of manufacture? Although they look identical (the one on my gravel bike is a little longer) the one on my race bike almost feels concave to your backsideÂ
I think I put the saddle on correctly 🙂 I've just never seen two apparently identical saddles feel so differently on different bikes.Â
Any thoughts or things to try? Should I just put up with the pain on my race bike until my backside gets used to it? Should I just swap back to the OEM saddle and have done with it? I have to say the pinarello OEM was actually not bad (if heavy)Â
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Q
Posted : 24/03/2025 9:28 pm
Whats the bar height comparison between the two bikes?
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If its radically different then you might need a different angle on the saddle and also the lower the bars the narrower the saddle needs to be
Posted : 24/03/2025 10:08 pm
Have you tried swapping them over and seeing if the first one still feels nice on the race bike and vice versa?
Posted : 24/03/2025 10:26 pm
chakaping reacted
- First thing I'd do is swap them round as zerocool said.
Posted : 24/03/2025 10:48 pm
Although they look identical (the one on my gravel bike is a little longer) the one on my race bike almost feels concave to your backsideÂ
One is the boost (shorter) version?  That might affect flex  Â
selle italia make great saddles but also have a huge range, which changes from year to year and very similarly named saddle can have different padding/materials. (I use an slr x cross which had 2 very different versions).Â
I had a giant road bike that came with what looked like their copy of an slr. Same length, width, shape. Found it horribly uncomfortable though.Â
Posted : 25/03/2025 9:34 am
Have you tried swapping them over and seeing if the first one still feels nice on the race bike and vice versa?
Do this first, but I have found in the past that saddles I really liked off road were terrible for me on a road bike.
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I assumed it was because the riding position was so different, and I do have an MTB-style saddle on my gravel bike at the mo.
Posted : 25/03/2025 10:03 am
