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review

Selle Royal Lookin 3D Athletic saddle

7
£49.99

VERDICT:

7
10
Not the lightest for the money, but a supremely comfortable, hardwearing saddle
Weight: 
359g

At road.cc every product is thoroughly tested for as long as it takes to get a proper insight into how well it works. Our reviewers are experienced cyclists that we trust to be objective. While we strive to ensure that opinions expressed are backed up by facts, reviews are by their nature an informed opinion, not a definitive verdict. We don't intentionally try to break anything (except locks) but we do try to look for weak points in any design. The overall score is not just an average of the other scores: it reflects both a product's function and value – with value determined by how a product compares with items of similar spec, quality, and price.

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The Selle Royal Lookin 3D Athletic is a very comfortable but somewhat heavy saddle, good for a range of positions on the bike and optimised for a 45-degree forward lean that should suit most athletic cyclists. It's not one for weight-watchers though.

Weighing in at 359g vs the venerable Charge Spoon at 220g for half the price, the Lookin 3D is a portly perch. The see-through gel-filled window mentally predisposes you to think 'hybrid retired person's shopping bike' and I must admit to a fair degree of scepticism when starting the review process for nippy, long-distance road bike use.

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This wasn't helped by the fact that because of less usable rail clamp length (65mm compared with 75mm on my Merida's stock Prologo Kappa2) my nose-of-saddle to bar measurement was 5mm longer than normal. Not a huge discrepancy, sure, but if you've paid money to dial your bikefit it's annoying to find you need a different seatpost to achieve the same setup. The Lookin 3D comes up 10mm taller, too, easily corrected by dropping the seatpost.

Selle Royal Lookin 3D Athletic saddle - underside.jpg

Underneath is an 'Integrated clip system' for accessories – Selle Royal offers a small flashing light that looks to run on button cells, and a 500cc reflective saddlebag. There's potential for this system to be more useful if a generic mount was offered to fit your own items.

The covering is Selle's 'Superfabric' – which it claims is guaranteed resistant to cuts, abrasion and punctures. The corners of the saddle are a tough, woven-look fabric that should stand up well to the worst a coffee-stop brick wall or road verge could throw at it.

The Lookin 3D's secret sauce is the 'Tridimensional Royalgel' – a patented substance designed to reduce vibration, isolating road shocks by dissipating energy in three dimensions before it reaches your sit bones. Does it work? In a word, yes. In more words, very well indeed – to the point that, during long review rides, I often forgot to pay it any attention.

As a reviewer you become attuned to feedback from the bike and body, looking for hints of what could become prolonged discomfort under harsh or prolonged ride conditions. After three hours onboard the Lookin 3D, I had to make a mental note to pay attention to how things felt. This is testament to how well it suited my combination of body geometry and position.

A favourite 50km loop involves lots of in-the-saddle hard climbing, pushed right back against the wings to leverage the quads, followed by a prolonged return down a flat valley over less-than-pristine road surfaces. This return leg was the real eye-opener, where, perched fairly far forward on the nose of the saddle in an aero tuck, there wasn't a hint of discomfort or need to shift about.

> Buyer's Guide: 18 of the best saddles

Looking down at the plan view of the Lookin 3D compared with my other saddles it does appear to be shorter, but this is a trick of the eye as it doesn't taper as much. My 140mm saddle width preference perfectly aligns with the inside of the corner patches.

Saddles are the most personal of choices and there is no rhyme nor reason between cost and performance/comfort. I've ridden £150 models that were penury after an hour, yet have done over 10,000 miles on the aforementioned Charge Spoon at £30. At £49.99 the Selle Royal Lookin 3D Athletic is a sound choice to consider if you're after comfort while adopting more aggressive postures, and you aren't that concerned about weight.

Verdict

Not the lightest for the money, but a supremely comfortable, hardwearing saddle

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road.cc test report

Make and model: Selle Royal Lookin 3D Athletic

Size tested: 267 x 150mm

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

It's a saddle for people who ride with a more aggressive posture, who want comfort and aren't fussed about weight.

Selle Royal says: "The LookIN Athletic was created for riders who pursue every bit of speed possible by adopting a low, athletic position on the bike. The 3D SkinGel 'window' in the surface is transparent, allowing you to see how the Royalgel™ padding responds to your position in the saddle. This innovative technology helps reduce discomfort from pressure points by up to 40% so you can ride faster, for longer. The saddle's SuperFabric® top layer gives fantastic resistance to scratching and the damage that comes from many miles of wear-and-tear – so your saddle lasts longer, while the FLEXITE shell features a unique indented structure, adding superb flexibility and shock-absorption to the saddles already excellent ride quality."

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

359g

Selle Royalgel and Superfabric

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
8/10
Rate the product for performance:
 
8/10
Rate the product for durability:
 
9/10

Looks tough, should last a long time with the wear patches.

Rate the product for weight (if applicable)
 
4/10

No escaping it, this is a heavy saddle.

Rate the product for comfort (if applicable)
 
9/10

Excellent. It's so good I forgot I was sitting on it.

Rate the product for value:
 
8/10

Possibly the perfect commuter saddle – comfortable, reasonably priced and tough wearing.

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

Minor fit issue aside, it worked very well indeed for me – the comfort on offer is up there with the very best.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

The comfort of the gel and nose profile.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

The weight – it's heavy, no escaping it.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes

Would you consider buying the product? Yes

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes

Use this box to explain your score

Had it been 100g lighter and with a bit more rail length to play with, it would have been an 8.

Overall rating: 7/10

About the tester

Age: 43  Height: 183cm  Weight: 72kg

I usually ride: Merida Ride 5000 Disc  My best bike is:

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: A few times a week  I would class myself as: Expert

I regularly do the following types of riding: cyclo-cross, club rides, general fitness riding, mountain biking, Dutch bike pootling

Living in the Highlands, Mike is constantly finding innovative and usually cold/wet ways to accelerate the degradation of cycling kit. At his happiest in a warm workshop holding an anodised tool of high repute, Mike's been taking bikes apart and (mostly) putting them back together for forty years. With a day job in global IT (he's not completely sure what that means either) and having run a boutique cycle service business on the side for a decade, bikes are his escape into the practical and life-changing for his customers.

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4 comments

Avatar
barbarus | 6 years ago
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It's royal lookin' but is it royal feelin'?

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Cupotea | 6 years ago
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I really don't understand reviews sometimes. This saddle described as "supremely comfortable" gets 3.5, but the Selle San Marco Classic Rolls  review which mentions "I couldn't get rid of the feeling that I was sitting on a tennis ball. After a 50-mile ride I felt a bit sore" gets 4 on the back of "Judging by online reviews, there are many, many happy owners who do get on with the Rolls".  These ARE online reviews. 

 

Avatar
KiwiMike replied to Cupotea | 6 years ago
0 likes
Cupotea wrote:

I really don't understand reviews sometimes. This saddle described as "supremely comfortable" gets 3.5, but the Selle San Marco Classic Rolls  review which mentions "I couldn't get rid of the feeling that I was sitting on a tennis ball. After a 50-mile ride I felt a bit sore" gets 4 on the back of "Judging by online reviews, there are many, many happy owners who do get on with the Rolls".  These ARE online reviews. 

 

read the report on the score justification. If review scores were based purely on their own personal comfort, it looks like it would've got a one. However, like so many cycling products the fit is essential - so the reviewer was taking into account the fact that on this most personal of items, on which he knows he is not the correct fit, there has to be a nuanced view about his final mark. 

Avatar
Vejnemojnen | 6 years ago
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Cosine Ti Endurance road is 17.5 euros now at wiggle.. 145mm wide, and below 230 grams..smiley

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