Selle SMP Strike TRK Lady Saddle

[cycotourer]

OK... I did it...

I bought the STRIKE and I have my own little concord mounted on my TT bike...

I have ridden it a few times this week, just in short half-hour rides, as I have the East Coast Champs this weekend - a crit on Saturday (my first crit ever) and the 25km time trial on Sunday. (The other two races are in Gisborne in two weeks).

So I get to try it full-on and hard-out on Sunday.

My first impressions are that it is very comfortable.

I was worried after i had read someone (here? or somewhere else?) saying that the cut-out was so wide it felt (after some time) that it was like sitting on two hard ridges.
But I have no sense of this after the short rides. Nothing feels squished or bruised.

On my first ride, after adjusting for height and nose angle and feeling it was ok, I set out to do reps on false flats. After about fifteen minutes my right leg began aching... it took me a further ten minutes of messing about, pedaling with my knees in/out, pedaling fast and slow, before I realised that the seat was pessing into my thigh. So whipped out the allen keys and adjusted the seat 3-4mm to the left and it was fine. No leg discomfort - I guess the slightly wider nose made a tad of difference and showed up my uneven hips, or perhaps a leg longer than the other...

I have had to put tape on one side of the nose as the place where the seat material is welded together is "sharp" - however, this will smooth down with wear...

Anyways, I will check back in after Sunday. I should have ridden 10-20kms in a warm-up and cool-down, as well as the 25km ITT.

PLease let us know how you go with the Selle SMP saddle. My husband and I both trialled a couple of SMP saddles that we got on approval from the Australian distributor .... if we didn't like them we could send them back. My husband kept the Strike Plus and we returned the Glider. They were both too narrow for me (wide sit bones), but the cut-out and Concord nose were outstanding, its like there was no saddle there at all.

I was disappointed that the lady's TRK was not leather like all the men's models.

As I require the saddle for touring I am going to try the Selle SMP Martin Touring Saddle, but from the images on the US distibutor's web site it looks much wider in the nose than the other models (due to extra padding) and this may be a concern.

BTW so many people think it looks goofy, but i think the SMP Strike saddles look racy, and it rides "fast".