Existing comfort saddles are compromised. They lack the form and function to support a human body, as it must be supported.

Movement is restricted from adding width, leading to chaffing, worse, to nerve compression. When the pudendal arteries are not affected by a saddle ‘nose’, pressure increases elsewhere, often in critical areas, such as a nerve. It has been a tradeoff. The support area of ‘conventional comfort’ seats is little better than a conventionally narrow sports seat (which we prefer to just wider TBH).

“The design priority wasn’t just to provide ‘a perception of comfort’, i.e., a temporary soft feel, it was to provide an absence of what causes discomfort, zero peak pressures, even distribution, over a far larger area, none in the pudendal zone.

Our parameters were to maximise support, with no loss of motion. 

“I contacted BBC Tomorrow’s World, who then had an open innovations programme, I was advised not to go public with a design, they saw it had “commercial potential”, so until a patent was at least applied for, nothing happens. 

“Several years were spent on searching patents, then talking to the innovation investors, NESTA, about prototype market trials, this seemed a great cost for rough prototypes, for one day’s feedback, at a shiny venue. 

“My brother, Paul (with business experience), and I were obliged to form a limited company as part of NESTA negotiations.

“We decided to go ahead with our own product development for manufacture and public trials – based on a real product – trust to real-world cyclist’s feedback. It worked, very well.

“This was achieved with the assistance of many good friends, and riders, manufacturing experts, DuPont, Velo Ent., others in carbon fibre (Lola). Relative cost and access meant we accepted an offer to work with Protomould, Fife. Introduced to us by Edinburgh Business Gateway, we met Bill Scott, Protomould’s wizard. It was clear he was perfect to work closely with and produce final, quality tooling, for an initial production run.

These, various, processes took about eight years.”

During this time Jon’s home paid for patents, to provide security. He was, then, committed (or should be). Beyond that, his family [bravely] stepped in to keep their family business independent, even during proof-of-concept. Scary really, but all involved were confident of the design following many, varied trials.

“What fed our motivation, was the contrast in experiences – and increasing evidence of damage caused by conventional nosed saddles – the feedback from early takers was quite something.

“Conventional saddle design has barely changed from the very beginnings of the bicycle, the ability to support the human anatomy has become less, in real terms. I think we just changed that.” – Jonathan (Jon) Catling, designer