The right saddle can prevent injury, increase wattage. A bike saddle is a basic piece of equipment, one that most people don’t put much thought into. They should. For years I rode on a popular, narrow Euro saddle that touted its long length as a quality that let the rider shift around, hopefully into the right position. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I never shifted into anything close to an optimum spot. It turned out the saddle’s talk of length was just an effort to compensate for a lack of performance and unwanted motion. And my body and wattage suffered as a consequence.

Enter the Specialized Toupe. After years of dealing with mysterious use injuries, many of which seemed to stem from my sacrum and low-back, within a week of riding the Toupe they were gone. In their place came a crazy new sensation – sit bone contact. It turned out that my shifting on my old slender, Euro saddle had been causing irritation; the lack of sit bone contact had undoubtedly been costing me watts. The Toupe makes this happen with its simple but thoughtful Body Geometry philosophy: design saddles to fit a rider’s body. And one size doesn’t fit all. That’s why the Toupe comes in three sizes, 130, 143, and 155 MM. Your local Mike’s Bikes shop can tell you what size you are with a simple tool that measures the width of your sit bones. I’m a 143. My old Euro saddle was ~130. Because that was the only size it came in.

Beyond assuring a proper fit and optimum sit bone contact for power output, Specialized’s Body Geometry team lab tests its saddles to assure blood flow to sensitive arteries. Enough said about that. All this and the 143 mm Toupe Pro tips the scales at just 137 grams.