By Lars Hundley
HOT!
- Ergonomic design with 3/4 inch dropped midsection to prevent pressure on the perineum
- Hollow titanium rails
NOT!
- Takes a little effort to figure out the correct height and tilt because of the dropped midsection
Cost: $155
How obtained: review sample from company
Available: company website
RBR Sponsor: no
Tested: 1 month
Tech & Specs:
Weight: 252 grams
Hollow titanium rails
Patented 3/4″ nose drop.
Originally a Successful Kickstarter, New Design for Roadie Purists
The Halcyon is the latest saddle design from 3 West Designs, which launched its first saddle after successfully raising money on Kickstarter in 2016. It turns out that the founder, Jon Marceleno, lives in the Dallas area. He brought me the saddle in person and explained the development of the Halcyon, which is a follow up to the first saddle from 3 West Design, called the Reprieve.
The original Reprieve saddle still exists and still gets rave reviews from both recreational and competitive cyclists, according to Jon. But it turned out that some roadie purists didn’t like the complexity of dealing with the air bladder that is part of that saddle design. So 3 West went to work and designed the Halcyon with a flatter shape, and used a foam insert instead of the air bladder.
Installation and Set Up
The saddle has a very recognizable shape, and looks different than other saddles, although not as unusual as something like the saddles from ISM.
I followed instructions from the YouTube video for the Reprieve model of the saddle for putting it on. Since there is the whole “missing” part of the saddle, it’s not completely straightforward to measure how high the saddle should be mounted if you usually put on a saddle with measuring tape and use a standard height, because of the negative space. Tilt is similarly challenging. I ended up initially setting it too low, which I discovered on my first ride. I raised it up, but then I still wasn’t tilted correctly and was pointed too far down. Eventually though, I got it dialed in and comfortable so that I could fairly compare it with my current Selle Italia saddle.
It turned out that I was scheduled for a bike fitting during the period when I was I was testing this saddle, and the fitter had a special system that analyzed saddle pressure as you are riding on the bike to determine whether or not a particular saddle is right for a specific person by looking at the pressure analysis. The Halcyon ended up testing very well for me, and was one of the saddles with the best pressure analysis of the six or eight different saddles I tested during the fit.
What’s With That Shape, Anyway?
As with the Reprieve saddle, the Halcyon model has a patented 3/4″ nose drop, with a higher area in the back and a “V” shaped notch for the perineum. It’s a real drop, and not a few millimeters. The drop allows your perineum to keep its natural shape and gives you room where you aren’t squishing your private parts against the nose of the saddle as you are leaning forward and pedaling. I can attest that the saddle feels quite different than anything else I’ve ever ridden, but was comfortable and did not cause any kind of numbness for me on rides.
Hollow titanium rails help keep the saddle at a very nice weight of just over 250 grams, and the 143 millimeter width is the sweet spot for most riders. The rails have markings so that you can easily measure any position changes. The saddle is manufactured in Taiwan by Velo, a well known company in the bike industry that makes saddles for many top brands, using Marceleno’s patented design that he came up with after many prototypes and feedback from a urologist.
3 West Design saddles come with a 30 day money back guarantee. 3 West plans to release another wider, 155mm width saddle in 2019 called the Trinity, and is busy developing a Women’s and an Aero saddle for release in the spring of 2019.
I ride quite a bit and haven’t yet found a saddle that will allow me to go on long rides over 50 miles without pain or lots of discomfort, this saddle seems interesting enough that it appears it should work; but it’s too bad it’s so expensive for people on a budget to buy like myself, maybe a version with less expensive rails and maybe a lower costing cover will drop the price for us mere mortals to afford.