194 – A Tale of Two Saddles

One of these things is disappointingly like the other.

Once upon a time, there was a newbie road bike rider. He needed a bike on which to do long rides, to train, and to race a little bit. So he found a deal on an aluminum race bike at his beloved local bike shop, bought it, and started riding. He did short rides, and long rides, and charity rides, and races big and small. He grew to love his shiny new bike.

But through every mile, his butt was always sore. Finally, he signed up for a ride so long it takes two days, and he couldn’t bear the thought of 183 miles of posterior suffering, so he went on the hunt for a better saddle. He drove all over, checking small shops and huge stores, searching high and low for a saddle that would fit his heinie just right.

But alas, after days of looking, he came away with nothing. Finally, the weekend before his big ride, he found himself in a bigger city, with more bike shops that carried more saddles he hadn’t seen before. He went to one of these shops and talked to the owner, who regaled him with tales of a saddle that was unmatched, that provided such exquisite comfort for one’s derriere, that our hero would never need another. Its name was Aliante Gamma, and it was from a strange place called Fi’zi:k.

And so he bought the saddle, expensive though it was, and left the shop convinced that his days of bruised buttocks were over.

When he arrived home, he went straight into the garage, striding confidently in to install his shiny, black saddle, the throne upon which he would conquer myriads of mountaintops and multitudes of miles. But a sinister truth awaited him. The saddle he had chosen, for which the owner of the shop had such high regard, and in which he had placed all his hopes…

Was nearly identical to the saddle it was supposed to replace.

The newbie rider mounted the new saddle anyway, as he was out of time to find another, and anyway wouldn’t have time to return to the big city before his long ride. So he installed the new saddle, and adjusted it just so, and hoped against hope that, once broken in, it would be just enough of an improvement that he could survive the next few hundred miles.

The end.