Tioga's radical looking range of Spyder seats feature webbed construction that the company says is able to conform to a rider's behind while also staying pliable and active. The $140 USD Spyder Outland version tested below employs removable silicone pads that should make it even more comfortable than the already impressive Spyder Stratum, but they do bump the weight up to a still-feathery 205 grams. Is the Spyder Outland more comfortable than its medieval appearance might have you believe?Why did Tioga take such a different approach to seat design? ''The Spyder aims to address a major deficiency present in mainstream padded saddle construction: shock absorption and, more specifically, its rate and frequency of absorbing energy from bumps,'' Tioga's Kai Cheng explained. ''We found that padding on saddles is an inefficient shock absorber because its level of absorption is proportional to its mass; more absorption requires thicker and heavier padding. As most performance saddles utilize padding of well under than 15mm thick, and then factoring in the padding compression once you sit on it, there’s not much shock absorbing value left to take on the hits.''
Spyder Outland Details• Dual material flexible web frame
• Removable silicone padding
• Dimensions: 285mm x 125mm
• Hollow chromoly seat rails
• No rider weight limit
• Colours: black, white
• Weight: 205 grams (w/ silicone pads)
• MSRP: $140 USD
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www.tiogausa.com So, instead of using standard seat foam that Cheng says will just compact down and become useless, Tioga went with a dual-material shell with a webbed design that's said to be far better at conforming to a rider's underside while also remaining flexible enough to still be forgiving.
It's the Spyder's dual-material construction that makes the design possible. First, a stiffer base material is used to create the seat's general shape (shown in green to the right), after which a softer, more flexible material is bonded over the top of it to create the Spyder's shell. The finished product looks pretty seamless, but you can spot the two different materials if you get close, and you can actually feel how the top is softer than the edges if you use your fingernail to try and scrape both. Tioga's 'DualTech' two-piece construction took awhile for them to get right, and they tested and decided against designs that offered both more and less flexibility.
The Spyder Outland's shell measures 125mm across, which is ten millimeters narrower than the racier looking Spyder Stratum, but the Outland's nose is a bit wider, and is intended to offer a more flexible and forgiving feel. Tioga has also added neat silicone pads that mesh with the Outland's webbed shell, although I have a feeling that the removable padding is more to convince people to try the seat than to actually increase comfort.
PerformanceDespite what my riding buddies were predicting, my underside wasn't rendered a bloody mess by the Outland's webbed shell, and I can vouch that all of my functions still function after roughly a year's worth of use. Of course, I already knew that would be the case because I spent a very long time on the Outland's lighter weight, less flexible brother, the Spyder Stratum. I've told people that the Stratum (which broke a rail during my time on it) was easily on my top five list of most comfortable saddles, so I expected the Outland to be pretty similar, if not even more comfortable due to the neat silicone padding that Tioga has added.
The Outland turned out to be quite different than the Stratum. To begin with, although its webbed shell looks very similar, it's actually 10mm narrower at the back and about 6mm wider at the nose, something that gives it a very different feel under you. The Outland was still comfortable enough for me to move it from test bike to test bike throughout the year, but I could definitely feel that pressure was being applied to a smaller area of my bum. This is purely down to the seat's shape rather than its funky webbed shell or silicone padding, which I know because I rode it with and without the silicone add-ons. Further highlighting that shape is far more important that how much padding a seat has, I actually found the Outland to be more comfortable without the silicone padding. I was happy enough with the shape to spend well over a hundred days with it under me, but I'd advise that it's best suited to those with narrow sit bones.
Much like I found with the Stratum, the Outland's edges could feel a bit harsher than a more traditional, padded seat when you get them into your gut or the inside of your thigh. I don't think I'd be putting this one on my dirt jump bike. But, if you're an open-minded kind of rider who prefers a seat on the narrow side of the spectrum, the Spyder Outland is worth looking it. The Outland also proved to be reliable, with it not emitting a single squeak or squawk over the last year of use, and its rails are still dead-straight.
Pinkbike’s Take: | The Spyder Outland's appearance is going to be enough to scare some riders away, which is a shame because I can almost guarantee that those who prefer a narrow seat will find the odd looking Tioga to be quite comfortable. - Mike Levy |
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Back to the dude at your shop: find him a wider saddle. My saddles are 150mm and 160mm wide. My innerlegs are nut rubbing against the saddle, what many people would think with wide saddles. If the wider saddle is not enough, sell him an ISM saddle in the correct width and softness for him. Looks ugly but is apparently the best saddle ever made from what I heard. Big chance that once their 10 years patent ends, all other saddle companies will jump onto this design aswell, and the shape will become accepted as normal.
- Sir - I am trying to save you money here, we are not a store that will throw a 300$ carbon saddle at you
- I want to speak to your manager, this is none of your business, in fact seated pedaling is more efficient, you obviously have no idea about cycling. Can I speak to a manager here, not some dude on a summer job?
(manager shows up)
- Sir we have not a single saddle that can guarantee that your sex life will be improved. I am not putting my money on what looks like a potential lawsuit in the future.
- Then I will go to Specialized store, they have ergonomic saddles!
- Please do but for it's worth I can tell you that from my 20 year experience in cycling an married life, I can tell you, that if you can't do it in standing position for more than 5 minutes your sex life is worthless anyways...
Man leaves the store
Tried Sella san Marco rolls ti, scoop, giant contact sl, plus 7-8 more on store fit bikes (fizik, newer sella italia with and without cutout, some OEM seats). Was going to settle for the giant (narrow, no numbness but hard as a rock) when out of desperation I went to the specialized dealer... on their smug advice I took home a phenom comp. Problem solved. 2 hours sitting is no problem and it is narrow enough it doesn't chew on my inner legs. Like magic.
All that doubt and skepticism.Turns out my seat height was fine, saddle nose height was fine, forward back was fine, bar height, etc, etc. Key for me was getting weight off perenium while keeping nose narrow. Now >100 days and still no problem. Don't give up hope there is a saddle for every ass.
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Looks likea camel toe but it rides great.. and it's probably not a coincidence.
I've been using Specialized saddles for years, and I buy them at retail because my bike shop does not sell Specialized. I also do lots of bike fitting for road bike customers so have plenty of experience fitting customers to saddles, and to their bikes
This is my new saddle "Specialized S-Works Power" which is incredible
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All load bearing is onto the ischial tuberosities (sit bones) with practically no soft tissue contact. This takes some getting used as most saddles actually shared load between sit bones and soft tissue to some degree.
The Power saddle takes a couple of rides to get used to because of the direct sit bone loading, but there is no contact with the perineum which allows an aggressive forward postion - on many saddles including my previous Specialized Toupe you'd get perineum contact when rotating forward into the drops which caused uncomfortable pressure. You can't relieve this pressure by angling down the nose more than 1-2 degrees because you become unstable as you slide forward and place load on the upper body to provide support.
The tricky thing with saddle choice is there are 2 elements: "Support" (a good fit) and "Comfort".
The two are not the same, and you can have a saddle with great support but perhaps not comfortable in terms of transferring road shock
Then you have saddles which are comfortable but provide a poor fit (width, shape, too much padding) in that the pelvis is hunting for a stable position, causing instability under load which then causes a cascade of issues to the hips, back and knees.
I'd always take a saddle with support rather than comfort, as your body will adjust (harden) to the supportive saddle quickly, whereas a comfortable saddle with poor support will just cause ongoing issues and long term injury
Wow, terrific response and explanation. Exactly in line with what I experienced. Exactly right the perenium pressure was not something that I was conditioning to, seemed like road to permanent damage.
I wanted to like the scoop, it is beautiful but was too soft and wide and didn't relieve perenium pressure. The Giant Contact SL was the one other saddle that gave me good support without perenium pressure but it was EXtremely hard. I was prepared to endure because my sitbones would condition themselves but I would never use it off-road because it was like steel coated with a mm of vinyl.
Something I'm wondering: My current off road seat is an oem yeti seat. Doesn't look like much but is narrow enough and extremely springy. Not good for long seated rides but if I crash into it when riding it gives like a spring. I'd like another phenom for my main bike but it is pretty damn rigid. Have you found the more expensive phenoms have more spring?
I'm currently using the Romin with carbon fibre rails on my MTB (29'er) because its setup with a neutral drop (compared to a road bike); this has a thin padding on the top. I could not get on with the Romin Evo because I found the nose too wide despite the rear width being the same at 143mm.
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Specialized tend to offer different levels of padding, say level 3-2-1 with level 1 being the firmest.
in addition the choice of rail material has a small influence on the absorption of the saddle to road/trail shock, with the carbon fibre being stiffest / lightest, titanium being softest / mid weight and steel being somewhere in between in terms of stiffness but obviously heaviest
What can happen with two much padding is you get the "comfort" but not the "support" as the thicker padding may not allow your sit bones to find a good perch, but can cause excess movement as you float around on the thicker padding - this would be more of a problem with a road bike as often the uneven surface you encounter on your MTB causes constant movement in the saddle.
If they offer a 30-day swap out programme try experimenting with some different saddle models to find one that suits
I've seen a live demo of the blood flow analysis Specialized use to test their new design; a guy had a sensor glued to his johnson (!) and sat on a road bike with a variety of saddle models from SBC and competitors mounted to the same model of seatpost marked at the same height so they could swap it out quickly.
SBC won't release a BG saddle unless it maintains a good blood flow of say 50%. if it drops below this you start getting damage from restricted blood flow which is not something you can directly sense as pain (like liver damage) and only becomes an issue later with erectile disfunction. some of the competitor saddles they used during this live test dropped blood flow to below 10% within 2 minutes of pedalling - real scary!
Top 5? Is that a compliment? What are the other 4 - name names.
These saddles are very light, but as you said, rather narrow. I wish they came in 140 - 142mm width which is what the ass crack measurement device tells me I need.
This makes me doubt how much they actually know about the anatomy of saddles. To me this looks like they just wanted it to be as light as possible and didn't know what the negative effects are of a super narrow seat.
If they'd make a normal and a wide version aswell I would be interested in the seat. But 125mm wide? No thanks.
Research lead me to the line of SMP saddles from Selle Italia. They are goofy looking but comfortable and do not restrict blood flow to your bits. So thats what I ride with on my road bike.
The Tioga saddle looks interesting. I would rock try it on my MTB, except I dont think I have narrow sit bones.
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