SELLE ROYAL
Two ‘work wives’
pair up to stretch a saddle cover onto a pre-glued base
Saddle bases are inspected for imperfections before being coated
A Royal Selle-bration
Clearly excited about its 2014 product, Selle Royal forwent the usual Eurobike launch in order to show a handful of European cycling press the product first hand at its Vicenza factory. Mark Sutton reports on a fresh take on saddle design by a giant in the business…
AS ANYONE who has pedaled a few miles over a cobbled road, or through a churned up field will agree, the importance of having the right saddle under your bum can’t be underestimated. From comfort, through performance, right down to linked medical issues, if your customer’s serious about cycling, they’ll want to get it right. On the front line of the cycle trade, there is
gradually more and more money to be made from matching customers to their ideal saddle. Whether you’re measuring bums as part of a bike fit, or simply placing a female customer on a saddle designed specifically for the female form, there’s an art to getting it right. It’s something saddle manufacturer Selle
Royal knows a thing or two about, with around 20,000 saddles produced at the Vicenza factory for the firm’s brand catalogue daily. That number doubles in high season. As owners of the Brooks, Fi’zi:k and Crank Brothers, you’ll find boxes of saddle rails, rolls of material and
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stacks of saddle moulds stacked sky high in the firm’s factory, all set for distribution to more than 70 countries globally once assembled into the finished article. It’s an operation run like clockwork, with
210 staff on the production floor and another 90 in the sleek office building, making the firm second only to clothing manufacturer Diesel in terms of numbers employed in the region. So why spoil the surprise of Eurobike
launches by giving us journos a ticket to roam the building and get hands on with production line staff to see first hand the processes that go into creating a purpose built saddle? Well, presumably it’s because you’d assume
there’s nothing more than a bit of plastic, some fancy gel and a bit of glue going into the production of a top-end saddle? Well, you’d be wrong. A handmade saddle, as many coming from Selle Royal’s factory are, is far more time consuming than you may realise. “Selle Royal has paid close attention to what
different types of cyclists require from their saddles,” explains Selle Royal brand manager Roberto Bucci. “We’ve come up with a number of fresh takes on the performance and comfort market, with a simple guide for dealers to establish quickly and easily the best fit for their customer.” The focus of Selle’s presentation revolved
largely around the new Performa and Comfort catalogues. The former concept, targeted at the athletic cyclists out there revolves around three design principles – badged by Selle Royal as Flat, Wave and Anatomic – each served by two saddles, a high and a mid-range unit. These are set to retail for around €69.90 and €49.90, respective of the tier, once Raleigh receives stock in the UK just after Eurobike. The Flat concept is for the cyclist who
frequently shifts their position in the saddle to gain maximum pedalling efficiency and flexibility. Middle of the road, the Wave is
BIKEBIZ AUGUST 17
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