86% Of People Sit On Their Saddle WRONG. This Is Why

Most cyclists think saddle discomfort is just a saddle problem, but the real issue is often your bike fit and saddle shape/width. We visit Selle Italia’s HQ to use their idmatch system and speak with bike fit expert Matteo, who explains the common mistakes people make when sitting on the saddle. Watch as we use pressure mapping to reveal the easy fixes that can solve your saddle problems and help you ride without pain.

🤝 In association with @idmatch

Chapters: ⏱️
0:00 – Are You Sitting Correctly?
0:43 – Why Saddle Discomfort is a Nightmare
1:41 – The Most Common Mistake Cyclists Make
2:25 – The Easy Way to Set Saddle Tilt
4:18 – How Riding Position Impacts Saddle Choice
5:06 – Choosing Saddle Shape (Neutral, Flat, Waved)
6:50 – The Impact of Saddle Height
8:45 – Width vs. Shape: What Matters Most?
9:12 – Cutouts and Pelvis Rotation
9:33 – High Power vs. Low Power Riders
10:56 – What Does This Actually Mean for Alex?

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Are you sensitive to saddle changes, or can you ride on anything? Let us know what saddle type, shape, or features work best for you in the comments below! 👇

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Are you sitting correctly on your bike saddle? You might think so, but I’m willing to bet that’s not actually the case. So, in this video, I’m going to speak to a bike fit expert to show you and explain the common mistakes people often make. But perhaps most importantly of all, I’m also going to show you and explain the easy solutions to fix these problems so that you can ride your bike without any saddle discomfort. [Music] Saddle discomfort is one of the most frustrating problems to overcome when cycling, and it can be a total nightmare trying to find the solution. Now, most people immediately think it’s the saddle that’s the problem, but that isn’t necessarily always the case. To help me demonstrate this, I’ve come to Cellalia’s HQ in Italy to use their ID match bike fit and pressure mapping system so that we can see what happens as we change different elements of the bike fit and saddle setup. So, I’ve been riding a bike for the best part of 25 years now. Many of those racing professionally or at least at elite level. And in this case, you’d probably assume that I’ve got everything dialed in. But no, that’s not actually the case. You see, typically I gravitate towards riding on the front or nose of the seller, which isn’t exactly ideal. Before we dive deeper into the specifics of my setup, I spoke with Matteo, Cellalia’s ID match and bike fits expert to hear some of the common mistakes he sees people making. Right, Matteo, what are the most common mistakes that people make in terms of how they sit on the saddle. Yeah, in general is how to use the saddle. So, usually they are sitting on the front of the saddle. That’s a common mistake that most of the people are doing on the bike. There is a not difference mainly is because the shape of the setup probably is not correct for the customer for the cyclist and in that case obviously you have to find a way to do a a test and find your shape. With shape we mean which is the type of curve the cutout and the width of the saddle and obviously the tilting. So how to set the saddle on the bike? That’s an important topic because uh is also one of the most common question that everybody ask us on the website and uh for example we suggest to put the saddle from the BRP to the front independently from the brand and the model from the BRP to the front on level. that the saddle is correctly signal usually if you see on the road someone that has the saddle is too much rotated forward so the the degree are too much most of the time is because the saddle is not good for the customer. So would that be that the saddle is maybe slightly too wide or narrow? Probably most mostly it’s too wide most of the time and for example Celia is one of the brand that produce and has in his catalog all the model in small in this way we can uh suggest to everybody also and help everybody to have uh all the option. The reason is because the people don’t think about the saddle as an important component on the bike. So it’s the last component that everybody change and uh but is one of the most important because obviously your body your sensible part of the body is touching it during the all the training and all the race. The setup of the bike is related to the characteristic of the accessories. Both are important. So it’s important to have the perfect accessories for your body. Like uh for example if we compare the saddle to the shoes obviously you use the shoes of the number that is good for your feet and for the saddle it’s the same and we have to do the same with the end bar and in the end we have to set the position correctly to have and to use the accessories in the right way during the whole training and race. Out here on the road we all have different riding styles and riding positions. Some people will be more upright and some people will be low and aggressive and of course everything in between. And what was interesting was Matteo was explaining as we sit in a more upright position our pelvis rotation reduces. Now in turn what this does is increase the width of the contact points between our sitbones and the saddle. It also increases the pressure on our saddle, which means those people who tend to ride in a more upright position could typically benefit from having a wider saddle with more padding. But what doesn’t change is the shape of the saddle that’s best suited to you. So when people are looking to choose a different saddle, naturally people will look at the width or whether the saddle has a cutout. But there’s other elements to look at as well, isn’t there? Yeah, sure. For example, we have we can have different kind of uh characteristic of the surface of the saddle. For example, we can start from this that has a neutral characteristic. So, it’s not flat. It’s not totally flat, but is a little ergonomic and we call it neutral because it’s a shape that everybody can use it, we can say. But if you have a style that is more dynamic and you need also more possibility to slide or maybe uh have more possibility of sitting position on the saddle, it’s better to have a flat saddle like this. So this this solution doesn’t allow you to have a fixed position but a dynamic position. But we also can have a waved situation. the wave situation I’ll give you more support on the back and when you push you have your seat bones that are totally fixed on the bike so in that way you are super uh attached to the bike without having any movement so you need to take into account the type of rider and riding that you’re also going to yes obviously this is something that you can understand also based on your experience on the bike discussing with the bike fitter also and uh luckily we have also the test saddle program. So in that way, if you want to test the one shape, you take the test saddle, you go out on the road for a day, and you can see if that test that that saddle can be your solution. So what we’re going to do now is Matteo is going to make some changes to my usual bike setup and position. Then we can see how that impacts the saddle pressure mapping. The first area we adjusted was saddle height. 82 cm from the bottom bracket center to the top of the saddle is how I have my bike set up. And Matteo was quick to point out this seems to be high for me. And earlier on while we were chatting, he explained why this impacts how we interact with the saddle. Cuz if you have a saddle that is too high, obviously you have too much pressure under the arch. And uh usually if it’s too high the pelvis tend to go more forward because obviously you try to reduce the distance between the feet and the saddle. So to reduce and to go to have a less stress on your legs and muscle you maybe slide forward a bit but obviously after you are sitting in the bar position. So it sounds like riding towards the front of the saddle is more common but do you ever see people riding towards the back of the saddle? It’s not very common. I mean can happen that you can see someone that is riding too backward and probably this could be a signal to that say as that the saddle is too narrow for him. So they try to find a an area of the saddle where they have enough support for the sitbones but is more common to have someone that sit in the front than in the back. Yeah. So with all of these different things you can see how it’s complicated to choose a saddle and the position. There’s a lot going on. Yeah. Saturday is one of the I mean most complicated product for the customer to find and to see which is the perfect matching between the body and the characteristic of the accessory the of the saddle but also is important based on the type of experience and type of phrase or training that you do obviously and position too. Moving the saddle forwards and backwards on the bike, as you can imagine, influences how we interact with it. But what has the biggest impact is actually the saddle shape and the width of it. Now, it’s important to get the width and shape right first before then trying to fine-tune the fit with the position of the saddle on the bike. And this is actually a mistake that I’ve been making for a number of years now. But what I do need to explain next is hear from Matteo on how the different shapes of saddle change how we interact with it. You have to use the saddle that allow you to rotate as much as possible forward based on your flexibility and your capabilities of the body. So it’s important in that case to use a saddle with the right width but also with the right cutout that allow you to rotate and reduce as much as possible the pelvis pressure in the perinal area. The reach and height of your handlebars is also directly linked with the effort level and power that you’re cycling at. Now, someone riding in a low aggressive position at high power is going to have much less pressure on their saddle compared to someone riding in a more upright position at a lower power. And what this really means is that for everyday riders, having the correct saddle shape and setup is potentially even more important than what it is for pro riders. Now, one of the really cool things about the ID Match jig is that Matteo is able to manually control the power that I had to ride on the jig so that we can see how the changes in power change how I interact with the saddle and the pressure of it. Now, for those of you who haven’t seen this kind of tech before, it works by using a special saddle cover with 68 individual pressure sensors, which connects wirelessly to the computer to generate a heat map of what’s happening on the saddle. At initial setup, Matteo locates the biomechanical reference points known as the BRP. This allows the computer to sync what’s happening on the saddle to the onscreen image. All very clever stuff and in the future could potentially lead to some interesting developments within the world of 3D printed saddles. Now, all this knowledge and tech is fantastic, but what does it actually mean for me? Well, as I’ve explained already, I’m someone that forever has sat and ridden on the nose of the saddle, which isn’t exactly ideal. And having access to this pressure mapping data just really helps to put some visuals and information to highlight what the kind of issues are and also allows me to see how making tweaks and changes to my saddle shape and setup impacts how I interact with the saddle. That seems pretty obvious. The good thing is more information is better. And this has actually led me to be able to lean towards using a narrower saddle, which has mostly helped me to sit correctly on it, but also combined in with switching to the latest SLR saddle has helped a little bit too. So, as I explained, I’ve been doing this for a long, long time now. So, let me give you the quickest, shortest summary of the journey of how I’ve ended up with the position I am in today. So, forever more, I rode on the nose of the saddle. I tried moving the saddle forwards to force me onto the back of the saddle. That didn’t help. It just moved my whole body position forwards. I stayed like that for a number of years. Then shortnose stubby saddles came along and I thought this is great. It’s going to help solve my issue because the front of the saddle isn’t really there for me to sit on. But it also turns out shortnose saddles tend to be quite wide which meant I couldn’t sit on the back. So I still rode really far forwards. And I stayed like that for a number of years. And it’s only recently because I’ve started to investigate this further that I finally came to the conclusion that the narrow saddle was the answer for me. Now, as I said, it seems pretty obvious, but it’s important here because it highlights that just because you’ve done something a certain way for a long time, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always the right way. Simply put, the reason for me sitting so far forwards on saddles was simply to find the narrower part of it for my narrow sitbones. And maybe I’ll always be somebody who gravitates towards riding on the front of a saddle, but by using a saddle that’s better suited to my body shape and riding style, it means I’m more inclined to use it correctly, which is a good thing for moving forwards. It was really interesting to see how the minor adjustments to saddle shape and bike fit change how we interact with the saddle. But of course, there are other things to consider, too, if you’re struggling with saddle comfort, such as making sure that the saddle isn’t damaged or bent slightly. Plus, gradually over a few years, your saddle will actually wear out. Not just the surfaces and outer cover, but the physical base can gradually sag and give over time. This changes how you sit on it. Now, obviously in these cases, you’ll need to look for a replacement, but it just strengthens the case even more that the solution to saddle discomfort isn’t just down to the saddle type. Now, there will always be those annoying people out there who seem to be able to just jump on any saddle and just get on with it. Whereas, there are other people who seem to be super sensitive to every single change. And this is what makes saddle design, saddle position, and then bike fit in general such a broad subject with a near endless rabbit hole to dive deep into. But hopefully for the majority of us, the advice and tips from Matteo can help guide us towards sitting correctly and comfortably on the bike. Now, if you have enjoyed this video, please do give it a thumbs up and let me know in the comments section down below what saddle type, shape, and features work best for you. Right, I’m out of it. That’s enough chat about saddles.