Let’s say you are one of the most revered Italian saddle makers. Your products have been ubiquitous amongst professional and recreational riders alike. Each of the last 3 decades can almost be defined by a saddle of your design: the Turbo(matic), Flite, and the SLR. You recently made a complete redesign of the Flite while still offering a Flite “Classic”. But the Turbomatic, which has an almost cult-like following, has been out of production for about a decade, so it’s not so easily returned to the market. What should you do: go all-out on nostalgia by simply duplicating the tooling for the original saddle, or do you keep the contours of the original while using your most up-to-date construction techniques?
For Selle Italia, they pride themselves on having a forward-looking attitude. The new Turbomatic’s shape is familiar enough, but the shell and rails bear little resemblance to the 350gr+ boat anchor of old.
As the sales of “relieved” saddles (with a cutout to reduce pressure on your taint) edge out the solid saddles in this class, Selle Italia is savvy enough to simultaneously introduce a “Gel Flow” version, seen below.
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