Fizik Aliante 00

According to Fizik, value doesn't even get a look in when designing the saddles of its flagship range, which is why the Aliante 00 costs a cool £280. Thankfully its superbly comfortable ride, weight and looks go a long way to justifying its mental price tag.

Fizik's 00 range has been going for a good few years, and each iteration of a product uses some of the material knowledge and design ideas that the Italian company has gained over the last 12 months or so. A bit of an ultimate tuning department if you like.

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There's a lot of carbon fibre in the build of the Aliante 00. Beneath the Microtex cover and padding you'll find the first of two high modulus carbon fibre shells, both of which sandwich a flexible foam compound to create the Wingflex effect.

Wingflex is Fizik's design that allows the sides of the saddle to flex as your thighs go through their full rotation without hindrance. It does make a big difference to comfort and being able to get the power down in all positions.

These three layers really work together, with the carbon layers being thin enough to flex, promoting comfort, but also still feeling stiff when you're really going for it on a seated climb.

Attaching the saddle to your seatpost is a full-carbon rail. It's a complete unit running right the way around the seat rather than separate rails clipping into the saddle base, as you'd see on most saddles. This improves strength and stiffness without adding too much weight.

On the subject of weight, all this adds up to 165g, which is impressive considering you still get a decent amount of padding beneath the upper.

Comfort is the most important factor for most of us when choosing a saddle, and I certainly wasn't disappointed when it came to riding the Aliante 00. It's part of the Bull range in Fizik's Spine Concept line-up (riders with the least amount of flexibility), but it's still a performance saddle.

I've ridden a lot of Fizik saddles over the years, many of them Aliante models, and I've got on with every single one, but none to the level of this test model. It is unbelievably comfortable. It's like you're sitting in a chair rather than on a saddle.

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My first ride on it was a quick blast around for about 90 minutes and I was suitably impressed, but it was the next day when it really blew me away.

Thanks to some poor nutrition choices and 2,500m of climbing, a 126-mile trek to the coast and back saw me pretty much a broken man in every department except for one. I hadn't even noticed the saddle for the entire ride. I got off the bike without the slightest bit of discomfort in the chamois region.

The Aliante had absorbed everything from the road before it made it to me, and yet for all of those miles of ascending I never felt it flexing or bobbing around.

The shape just really suited me, from its curved mid-section through to the rounded nose. And that was in every position too – climbing, cruising or hunkered down in the drops for miles when the wind came to my assistance.

To my mind, Fizik has achieved exactly what it set out to: create the ultimate saddle without compromise. Of course, for me and probably the majority of you reading this, that 'without compromise' means there is one big drawback: price. Is the Aliante 00 worth it? It's a silly amount for a saddle, but I'm convinced it justifies it, especially if you do a lot of long distance rides but still want a narrow race model.

When you look at its lightweight construction, and the resulting comfort, you can kind of see where the money is going. And if you can't justify laying out this kind of dosh on a saddle, it's good to know that over the coming years all this technology will start to trickle down to more affordable levels.

Verdict

Money no object design – Fizik proves what can really be done with the humble saddle through shape and materials