By Nigel Dalton
Most people seem to find a seat that fits their bum and stick with it for life. If there were seat tribes, I am a Selle Italia Flite Titanium tribal elder, having had one of the very first of these aerospace looking devices in New Zealand in the 1990s. So it was with trepidation that I mounted the San Marco Magma to my Cannondale. This could mean serious pain in the arse, despite its obvious beauty.
I had already tried the world's saddle du jour - the Fizik Arione. No luck - as much as I yearned to have this new projectile design on my bike, there was no denying the sit bones. Being 100kg probably was the fatal flaw - putting the 'flex' in wingflex like the designers never anticipated.
The beautiful white leather Magma saddle arrived by post with a note from the R+R Director Sportif saying 'that blue piece of shit on your bike must go - happy birthday!' I'd recently submitted a polite request to the Style Council at R+R for some fettling of the new Cannondale System 6, already lurid in Team Liquigas's phosphorescent green and black.
Delighted to join the ranks of europhiles with their white seats, it was quickly fitted. San Marco holds great reverence for me in the history of cycling. When Slim once sold me his red Guercuiotti it came with his trademark San Marco Rolls, an impossibly uncomfortable platform that only 50,000km of hard riding would break in properly. Rolls feature on 2 of my restored bikes - a Merckx and a Bianchi.
I noted the Magma to be quite a sophisticated piece of engineering - the '2-4-5' after the name refers to the width of the sit-bones and general scale of the seat. It goes up to 255, but in all my time I've not seen one of those actually for sale. And to my delight the flat platform was at least as good as the long-used Flites.
And so I was happy camper #1, until about 500km worth of Melburnian flat-land later there was the hugest cracking sound accompanied by a distinct sagging feeling, and assuming I'd managed to do the unthinkable (break a Campy Record carbon seat post) Glen and I ground to a halt in West Williamstown.
The incident wasn't without precedent - riding with Glen on one visit to Melbourne we'd been far up the Maribyrnong River when I'd injudiciously forgotten to lift off the saddle for a speed hump and snapped the brand new Giant hire bike's Taiwanese carbon post. Long ride home standing up, and some explaining to do to the good people at Bike Now.
You don't really appreciate how much your seat contributes to your riding until you have to do 20km home with no platform to support you. The Magma had busted right through the middle.
The Wellington LBS did the decent thing and sought a warranty replacement, which was duly despatched. Scuttlebut on the net suggests I'm not the only rider to suffer a Magma meltdown, and I'll be philosophical when it inevitably happens again. The replacement sadly was black, so has to go ... though, I do wonder what the R+R Style Council would say about some white lever hoods over black tape?
Review Score:
Function: 5+ (8 while it works, 0 when it doesn't)
Form: 10 (sexy, plus bonus points for not hanging with the crowds of Fizik Freds either)
Price: 3 North of $240 RRP is a shocking amount of money to pay for a saddle, but I may be being over-harsh here as you don't see anything much under $200 in the desirable classes of Fizik or Selle Italia these days.
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