Selle Italia

SLR TM Flow Saddle

Spinning through five hours of base miles can be hard enough with a saddle adding additional discomfort by repeated pummeling you from below. The Selle Italia SLR TM Flow Saddle helps to ease the pressure of long-distance cycling by literally easing the pressure on sensitive tissues. It provides the same padding and pressure relieving channel as the lighter weight standard model, but it features slightly heavier materials throughout. This adds grams, sure, but it also keeps your wallet heavier.

Selle Italia's signature Flow cutout is especially helpful on the SLR model, which was developed for racing and thereby benefits more from Flow's weight loss and increased positioning options. It's a claimed five grams lighter than the non-Flow SLR TM, and it also eliminates pressure on delicate areas when your hips are tilted aggressively forward. Less material equates to more comfort in the drops, more time spent in an aerodynamic posture, and a better chance of staying off the front to the finish line.

It's also got a uniform flatness from aft to fore, so you can move through different positions depending on what the road throws at you. Trying to maintain a gap in the wind? Perch on the nose to tuck into some time-trial power without fear of smashing your soft tissue. Grinding out a long climb? Scoot back and engage your gluts and hammies. Whatever the terrain you happen to be racing on, the moderate SLR profile has you covered.

The saddle's reinforced nylon body and added padding are themselves covered in Selle Italia's Duro-Tek synthetic, an abrasion-resistant material that provides a confident platform to let you cycle through those various positions without shredding your shorts. The shell is supported by manganese rails, which add a few grams compared to carbon or titanium but cut price drastically without sacrificing comfort or non-bouncing support.