Demos and Tender Bits

Lovely purple things arrived at Pedal today:

Nine saddles! What gives? Well, we have three road bike saddles, three mountain bike saddles and three Versus saddles.  “Versus,” you ask, “What the heck is that?” Frankly, this is about the best answer you’re gonna get:  http://www.pelotonmagazine.com/Tested-Goods/video/9/469/Fizik-Arione-VS-Video-Review

A few things that the reviewer mentioned match my thinking to a great degree, such as the fact that a complete seat shell — sans cutout — will have greater structural integrity than a seat with a cutout. I confess that I have also wondered if all of this cutout-male-numbness stuff, a topic with serious implications, is a bunch of FUD.

Back to the nine purple fi’zi:k saddles. Combined with our eight black and yellow WTB saddles, these constitute our demo fleet of saddles. How’s it work?

• You come in and ask to demo a saddle.
• We give you the saddle of your choice and take a $75 deposit.
• You take the saddle home, put it on your bike and try it out for a couple of weeks.
• If you like the saddle, we’ll order you a non-demo saddle and apply your deposit to its purchase.
• If you don’t like the saddle, you can bring it back and try another. And another. Et cetera.
• If you throw up your arms in disgust, we’ll happily give you a $75 Pedal gift card.

The human bottom/bike short/saddle interface is of prime importance to anyone who rides a bike. We hope these demo saddles take a great deal of cost out of the trail and error process that one must inevitably endure when the time comes to find a new seat.

Alas, we haven’t found an appealing way to demo bike shorts. Yet.