Beautiful mountains, dreamlike passes, the unique world of the Alps – for many cyclists this would be a real season highlight. For team Vorarlberg’s 15 riders, however, this is home. Or at least the home base of their UCI Continental Team founded by Thomas Kofler. Starting this season, the riders of his team have been riding on gebioMized saddles.

Normally, our bike fitters would determine the most suitable saddle model from the Secret Saddle Club range for each rider by measuring the saddle pressure. As, however, currently nothing is normal, we had to refrain from meeting the team in person for the time being.

Time for plan B and our Online Saddle Selector, a device that is the next best thing to an in-person riding position analysis, especially if photos and videos of the riders’ positions are available to us. Fortunately, this was the case with team Vorarlberg riders.

The quest for the perfect saddle

Let’s go and find the perfect saddle! First, riders had to fill in a questionnaire providing us with information about the current setup of their road bikes. Especially the current saddle model as well as its specific advantages and disadvantages for the individual rider give us important clues. In addition, answers to general questions about the riding position and whether there are any foot, knee or back problems tell us what we need to pay particular attention to.

Riders then enter directly into the saddle selector, for example certain information on their mobility, which gluteal area is mainly strained when riding their bikes and whether they are particularly sensitive to saddle pressure in certain areas. In addition to this information, we scrutinized photos and videos of the riders on their road bikes. By doing so we learned a lot about factors such as drop, saddle height, pelvic tilt and the back line.

To victory by remote evaluation

This wealth of information combined with our experience from countless bike fittings enabled us to make a saddle selection for each rider via “remote evaluation”. We’ve made it a rule to compare different saddles, also in on-site bike fittings, therefore, some riders were sent two models to choose from. This way, they can, e.g., do some test rides in training and find out in real-life conditions whether they feel more comfortable on their road bikes with a channel or cut-out saddle.

As soon as the situation allows for an in-person meetup, we will of course catch up on this and check and optimise the saddle choices and their positions on the bike. Highly individual and on site.

Team Vorarlberg have already celebrated their first successes on our gebioMized saddles. Italian Filippo Fortin won the first stage of Istrian Spring Trophy in Croatia. His saddle of choice: gebioMized Sleak 145 Cut-Out. Filippo’s comment: “The best saddle I have ever ridden!”