Saddle, seat, whatever you want to call them, they are quite the tough piece of equipment to get dialed in specifically for yourself. Everyone has different styles of riding and each of us also has a different position on the bike. Even if only ever so slightly. So saddle designers have a pretty tough task to get such a wide range of riders, riding styles and body structures to deal with.
Designing saddles for different types of riding can be tough. A hybrid type bike tends to sit a rider more upright, giving them a larger surface area where they are touching the saddle. Which is why you see most hybrid/comfort saddles have a much shorter front to back ratio, but a wide sit area. Such as on this. Then when you look at a mountain specific saddle, they have to be built to get in and out of quickly while moving from side to side and to be able to drop down over the back if need be for some whoops. Especially if you don't have a dropper post. Which can move the saddle up and down from your settled position to go back and forth from descending and trail riding. Then you have both road and time trial/triathlon saddles. Road saddles tend to be a bit longer and narrower since road riders have a much more forward leaning position, leaning their pelvic area forward and their tuberosity of the ischium, or sit bones, are tilted forward as well. Which is why you see so many road saddles with a cutout in them running from font to back, depending on climbing, regular and sprinting positions. With triathlon saddles, they tent to stay wider for a bit longer and put you in a much more forward position on it as well. That being for the aero position you end up sitting in for hours.
Which leads me to the review of the Bontrager Hilo RXL Saddle. I picked this up a couple weeks ago, just to see how it went and to try out a triathlon specific saddle. If you pick up a Bontrager saddle, especially from a Trek Store (Bontrager being the clothing and accessories brand of Trek), Bontrager gives you a 30-day comfort guarantee to try out their saddles and return them if you are not 100% satisfied. Pretty cool deal if you ask me.
As for the Hilo RXL, I was interested to see what a triathlon saddle did for me vs a road saddle. So I took off my old Selle Italia road saddle and mounted my new Hilo RXL. I have my seat post turned 180 degrees on my road bike so I can get more forward on it, to mimic my tri bike. I got it loaded up and went out riding to get a feel. Right off the bat, I felt a much better contact area than compared to my Selle Italia. With the front to back cutout and longer/wider nose, I felt a bit more comfortable. I do ride the larger saddle widths when choosing a witch is an option, so this was a nice added bonus.
Another thing I noticed once I wanted to stand up on the bike, was that the saddle wanted to keep me in place. There's a little extra grip along the rear of the saddle to help lock the rider into position. Something you don't find on most saddles. Usually made to move around easily, but the Hilo RXL wanted to keep me locked in. Which for a road bike, not so great, but when I mount this on my tri bike, I know I will love. Especially on race day so I'm not wasting time, energy and concentration on shifting my weight.
The rails on the saddle are hollow titanium, which while not as light as carbon, are ridiculously stiff and can handle a lot of load. With them being hollowed out, it does save a good amount of weight from a solid rail.
With the full length cut out, your sit bones can be more comfortable in both a traditional riding position as well as being off the front and completely aero. Something not offered in many saddles. It does make it look a bit weird, but I could feel the benefits when I took this out for a 4 hour ride though the hills and nearly 5,000 feet of climbing on my road bike. I was comfortable on this from start to finish.
The only thing I've found I don't like about this saddle is the transition hooks, that honestly I would never use. They're not large or robust enough for me to trust hanging on a transition horse with other riders around slamming bikes near mine. If it were something more like the ISM Racing saddle, I could consider it. But these are just too small. The ISM is much sturdier and larger to instill my trust on a multi-thousand dollar bike.
Overall I really like this saddle though. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a time trial/triathlon specific saddle. It gets the job done for me on all fronts except the transition hooks. Which in all honesty, would maybe save me half a second in transition vs shifting the bike from being balanced on the nose.
On a final note, if you're looking for a more versatile saddle, this one does have a big brother. The Hilo RXL Speed Dial. This one has 16mm of adjustment in the nose to accommodate a wider range of sit bone widths and get a truly dialed fit.
-Dave
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