Saddles

Micro matrix (faux leather to you and me) coverings and indexed Cro-moly rails might not set pulses racing but the Pro-Lite Cles CrMo saddle's superb build quality, innovative design, competitive pricing, and unique “full zone” cut-out could be a big hit with those looking for a minimalist racing saddle at a price to match.

I have been riding the standard cro-mo railed Spoon virtually every day for a year, so you could say I am already a convert. The original Spoon offers great performance, style and value. And the Ti is a race ready, mile munching saddle for £20 more. What's not to like?

My first impression of this saddle was: [expletive] me, this thing is light! The SLR is a true featherweight at a mere 135g, proudly advertised on the saddle and ratified by the road.cc scales. And it looks fast too. You might think at this weight comfort would be, shall we say, a secondary consideration. You'd be mistaken: it's a well designed and reasonably comfy minimalist perch.

Fizik have a good track record in recent years, bringing us the Aliante and the revolutionary-at-the-time Arione. The Antares sites between the two in terms of shaping and is billed as the third dimension, an evolution of the two. The outcome of the marriage is a very light, comfortable road perch with a good depth of padding.

In a world where you more often than not pay more to get less it's refreshing to find products such as the Max Flite Gel Flow saddle, where the extra spend seems to be more oriented towards good quality materials and construction than gram-shaving. The result is a plush middleweight seat that should give you years of trouble-free comfort.

No, Specialized have not branched out into hairpieces, rather the Toupe is a high end minimalist perch brimming with space age materials and surprising levels of comfort.

Let's get the whole 'saddles are a personal thing' bit out of the way - I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't think the Charge Spoon is a comfy perch. That's pretty rare, so they must be doing something right. Other things they're doing right are making it look cool, with a nice stitched finish, and not charging the earth for it. The Cromo version is still the winner for value, but the lighter Ti version is a lot of saddle for the money. It's available in brown, black leather (for a bit more) and pimpy white.