Selle San Marco Classic Regal Evo Carbon Saddle

You'll still see the Selle San Marco Regal and Regale saddles on plenty of Pro bikes: it's been a favourite of top riders for many years and Greg Lemond, Mario Cipollini and Tom Boonen have all picked it as their race perch. The Regal Evo is a carbon-reinforced development of the saddle, with both Xsilite titanium and carbon-railed options available. It's a classic-looking saddle but it's also very light and pretty comfortable, if quite a firm ride.

Saddles can get down to under 100g but most racing saddles hover around 200g and this Regal Evo Carbon was 212g on our scales; Selle San Marco claim 190g. That's proper racing-perch weight, almost exactly the same as the £250 Prologo CPC Airing Nago Evo Nack Saddle we tested recently. Although, clearly nowhere the 112g Selle San Marco Mantra Superleggera Saddle. That's almost twice as expensive as this one, though.

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What you get is a nylon shell reinforced with long-strand carbon fibre. On top of that there's a layer of closed-cell biofoam padding, with a microfibre leather-look cover. The Regal Evo gets the trademark rivets around the rear of the saddle, and the front-back profile is flat, with a wide rear and quite strongly curved wings, with the cover extending quite a long way down in the classic style. It's beautifully made and it looks fantastic.

The rails are carbon fibre, using Selle San Marco's DNA design where the two rails are tied together near the front to increase the torsional stiffness. The tall rails mean that the saddle won't work with seatposts that clamp from the side, so be aware of that.

The ride qualities of the Regal Evo reflect its race heritage. This is a pretty firm saddle, both in the stiffness of the shell and the nature of the padding. If you're used to being told to find and anchor your sit bones by your favourite training program, it certainly makes that job simple. It's not uncomfortable though: there's enough flex in the shell and give in the biofoam to take the worst of the sting out of the tarmac.

Read more: 18 of the best saddles — the seats that improve cycling comfort for men and women

There's no central groove or cutaway, so if you suffer from numbness due to pressure build up then it might not be the saddle for you. I don't generally have a problem with that except on the turbo, and even indoors I found the Regal Evo to be pretty comfortable for an hour. Outdoors longer rides were fine: you're moving around more and there's more opportunity to get out of the saddle. It didn't do well enough in terms of comfort to get on the bike full time, but saddle comfort is a very personal thing; your mileage may vary there.

There's no doubt it looks the bee's knees on the bike, too. Clearly £150 isn't pocket money, but you can spend plenty more than that on saddles that aren't as nicely built and finished as this. It's equally at home on a modern carbon race bike and something a bit more classic: light and firm enough for racing with looks that are good enough to grace pretty much anything. If you like a firm saddle and you want it look just so, this is one for the list.

Verdict

Classic looks with racing performance and weight make this a good choice for your best bike

Read more: 12 of the best high-performance saddles — improve comfort & save weight in one upgrade