In The Know Cycling

Looking for a modern bike saddle for road racing that can help you ride faster?

In this transcript from a video posted on the In The Know Cycling YouTube channel, top masters racer and fellow tester Miles shares his experience and offers guidance after choosing between the Bontrager Aeolus Pro, Fizik Vento Argo 00 and Argo 00 Adaptive, and Prologo Dimension saddles as he aims for the podium again at this year’s US Nationals.

Steve: How do you choose a bike saddle for racing? And once you’ve found one and had good success with it, why change? What saddle should you consider today if you’re looking for a new road racing saddle?

Hi, I’m Steve from intheknowcycling.com and the In The Know Cycling channel. We’ll answer those questions today.

I’m joined by my fellow tester, Miles, who just won his second consecutive Massachusetts state road racing championship. He’s headed out to Nationals this weekend, where he’s podiumed multiple times before.

Miles, welcome. Good to see you. Congratulations

Miles: Thank you.

Miles’ road saddle history

Steve: What saddle have you been on? How has it worked for you in the past? Why change now?

Miles: For years, I was on the Fizik Antares, usually the R3 model, which retails for $100 to $120. It’s just a solid overall racing saddle. It’s got plenty of space to move around. It’s elongated, which means you can get forward on the saddle to really put the power down.

It just works for me in all different kinds of environments – criterium racing, road racing, even gravel and cyclocross.

It came stock on one of my bike purchases about 15 years ago, and I liked it, and I ended up, because it was fairly affordable, I bought several of them to go across the different bikes that I have.

Why change a winning saddle

But more recently, I realized that saddle designs have changed and become slightly wider and shorter, and with more channeling in the middle. And so I was interested in trying out different ones for racing.

Steve: So that’s really interesting because, for a lot of people, it takes years and years to find the right saddle. Once they do, the last thing they want to do is check out another one.

And you’ve had a lot of success. I won’t go through all your palmares, but last year was one of your best years ever in terms of your results, at least at the age group level.

So, were you just curious to see what else was out there, or were you tired of this one, or was it not feeling right anymore? Get into more.

Miles: Yeah, I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty adaptive rider. I could ride any bike in any situation. I just like to ride bikes, and I’m not that particular.

But over the years, I’ve become more particular about certain things and the fit that I have, and things like the width of my handlebars and exactly where my hoods are placed.

And that’s just come you know, not out of being neurotic about it, but just years and years of experience and trying out new things and telling myself “Yeah, that feels a little better than it used to” and just playing around with my fit overall.

But, to be honest, I’ve seen a mixture of a lot of people with these new saddle designs.

Plus, the Fizik Antares was getting a little uncomfortable. Perhaps I wasn’t replacing them as fast as I should have, and a lot of time on the trainer in the winter. I was just thinking it’s maybe time to explore new saddle designs and see how it goes.

What to look for in modern racing saddles

Steve: As you went into that exploration, did you have a few things that you were looking for specifically in a new saddle?

Miles: In particular, I wanted it to be slightly wider and have a center channel, and to be able to be comfortable when seated really far forward on it.

I could get (forward) with the Antar saddle, but I felt like there was probably something even better out there.

Steve: So let’s go through the saddles one at a time.

In The Know Cycling is ad-free, subscription-free, and reader-supported. If you want to help keep it rolling without any added cost to you, buy your gear and kit after clicking the store links on the site. When you do, we may earn an affiliate commission that will help me cover the expenses to create and publish our independent, comprehensive, and comparative reviews. Thank you, Steve. Learn more.

Fizik Vento Argo 00 Adaptive

Miles: First, I tried the Fizik Argo Adaptive with the 3D-printed top. I love the shape of the saddle overall, but the material, for me, is not great for racing.

Steve: And why is that?

Miles:  It’s simply too sticky. You can’t move around on it. It really grabs your bib shorts.

Let’s say you were in a race situation. You’re seated back. You were at zone three power, and suddenly, there’s an attack that happens, and you want to chase after it.

Let’s say you’re climbing up a steep hill at the same time, and you want to be seated for part of that counterattack. You really have to get up out of the saddle and hopefully land your butt in the right spot that you want.

I found it very hard to even tweak half a centimeter forward or backward while putting full power down without getting up out of the saddle.

Steve: Just to add to that, we have reviewed 3D saddles from multiple brands. (See 3D-Printed Daddles and The Search for Comfort.) I use a couple of 3D saddles, one on my gravel bike and one on my road bike. I don’t move the way you do on a bike since I’m not racing. I find that the grippiness of some saddles is more pronounced than others, depending on how they’re constructed.

So this one didn’t work for you, and perhaps doesn’t as a broader racing consideration.

Bontrager Aeolus Pro

Miles: So the next one I tried was the Aeolus Pro, which has a very simple design. It’s got these holes in it to provide some flexibility I guess. I’m not totally sure what the holes are for.

But in terms of comfort and racing, I really love this saddle. It’s a little bit more sloped from the back to the front, which allows you to rotate your hips more to get more aero.

I really appreciated that it’s fairly wide in the front, but with this really robust center channel, so you can really get down low and aero. You can also move forward on the saddle and really hammer up a steep climb while seated without any discomfort in the front part of the saddle.

I found you could get really aero in the saddle.

I’d give it a 10 out of 10 in terms of comfort on everything from criteriums all the way through 4-hour races.

(You can order Bontrager Aeolus saddles directly from the Trek website.)

Prologo Dimension

The Prologo is the smallest out of all the ones I tested. It’s very flat front to back. For me, this was a pure racing saddle.

I didn’t really push how long I could stay comfortable on this saddle. I did race a few criteriums with it, and it proved to be very good for criterium racing because it doesn’t get in the way. So when you get out in sprints, when you come sit down, you know the saddle is right there where you want it to be, and it’s not in the way.

This one is super narrow in the front, so I found it kind of uncomfortable when I’m really forward on the saddle hammering.

It didn’t have as much space as the Bontrager Aeolus Pro. So, I really only found comfort when I was in the main purchase area.

And like I said, it’s fairly flat, which doesn’t really rotate your hips forward as much as the Bontrager Aeolus Pro. You have to do that on your own.

The other thing I liked about this is I like a really aggressive saddle position for the rails, where you put it relative to the seatpost. This saddle had the most rail space out of all of them. I could push the saddle farther forward than pretty much any of these other saddles.

I think it’s best for criteriums or flat time trials. I wouldn’t love it on a big mountain climb, and I wouldn’t like it for a century.

(You can order the Prologo Dimension saddle and get a 10% discount with code ITK10 from BTD – BikeTiresDirect and from Bike-Components.)

Fizik Vento Argo 00

This Argo is the non-adaptive version. It’s the 00 level, which means it’s their best level. It has the carbon rails. It also has a center channel, which is quite wide but also disappears in the front and the back.

That makes it, for me, slightly less comfortable than the Bontrager Aeolus Pro, and the material on this is a little grippy. It’s hot today, and it even feels more grippy, so moving forward and backward is not as easy as it is on the Bontrager, but it’s definitely much easier than it is on the adaptive version of this saddle

But this one is wide enough in the front that I felt like, when seated and climbing, I could put a lot of power down. The wide channel in the middle allows you to get pretty aero.

This saddle is also slightly ramped from the back towards the front, which I do like. It allows you to rotate your hips more forward.

If you can compare it to the old Antares, it’s hard to see, but there’s a little bit more of an angled ramp at the back of the saddle versus the old Antares, which is pretty flat with a slight ramp at the very back.

So you get a little bit more of a modern design.

(You can order Fizik Vento Argo saddles from BTD – BikeTiresDirect, 10% off w/code ITK10, Performance Bike, Competitive Cyclist, Bike-Components, and Sigma Sports.)

Miles’ racing saddle choice for Nationals

Steve: So Miles, as I mentioned earlier, you’re headed out to Wisconsin for Nationals. You’ve got several saddles to choose from. You’ve told us the pluses and minuses of all these.

Which do you plan on using at Nationals?

Miles: I think I will likely keep the Fizik Argo on the bike. It’s very close with the Bontrager Aeolus Pro. I could go either way.

I feel like it does take some trial and error to get the position exactly right. For me, they’re very, very similar saddles.

Some of the main differences are that this is a little lighter than the Aeolus overall, so you save some weight on the bike. It’s about 55 grams lighter if I did the math right.

It’s comfortable enough for a three-hour road race. I’d give it like a 9 out of 10 in comfort, whereas the Aeolus is a 10 out of 10 in comfort.

So it’s a little bit of sacrificing comfort for weight savings.

I feel like the power transfer, the ability to pedal, is about equal for the two of them.

Key learnings for road racers

Steve: So, having gone through this process of trying different saddles, what have you learned about how to choose or how to look at different saddles and how to test them that you think would be relevant to others racing and wanting to use their saddle to help them go as fast as they can?

Miles: Most saddles now come in a variety of widths so knowing the width that you are the ballpark that you’re in is really important.

You can do one of those sitbone tests. It’s important that you get the width right even though there are really only two or three options to choose from.

It’s important to get the width right because you don’t want the saddle to be too wide, because it can get in the way. You don’t want it to be too narrow because you’ll be uncomfortable.

I’m a medium-sized guy, and the 140 to 145 mm width was perfect. In many respects, these five saddles are all of very similar width. When you sit on them, the things you notice are less the width and more what you get forward and backwards, and the comfort that you get straight down with your weight.

Those, for me, are the factors. So once you have determined your width, then it’s about the considerations around how aero you want to be, do you want to be able to move forwards and backwards on your saddle during hard efforts, and you know how much channeling in the middle you require for comfort for longer rides.

Steve: Miles, thanks so much. This has been very helpful and instructive. If I were a racer, I’d know exactly what to do.

Those of you who are racers, who have enjoyed this  and learned something from this video, feel free to like and subscribe, and check out the links to where you can get these saddles in the description box below.

Thanks. We’ll see you again in the next video.

*      *      *      *      *

Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think of anything I’ve written, or ask any questions you might have in the comment section below.

You can use either the pop-up form or the one located at the bottom of the sidebar to receive notifications when I publish new reviews. To see what gear and kit we’re testing or have just reviewed, follow us by clicking on the icons below.

Thanks, and enjoy your rides safely! Cheers, Steve