This article was produced in association with Fizik
It’s said there is nothing new under the sun, and Fizik might agree with that – the Italian brand’s One-to-One custom 3D-printed saddle service, launched earlier this year, is a new and innovative product, but it is also something that had previously existed in a very different format.
Veteran cyclists will remember when a leather saddle had to be ‘broken in’. The only way to accomplish this was by enduring at least 500 kilometres of pain. However, by the end of it, riders would be sitting on a seat moulded perfectly to the shape of their individual sit bones that would supply years of comfortable riding.
But leather saddles went out in the 1960s when Cinelli launched the plastic Unicanitor, which although unmouldable, was much lighter. And from that point onwards, shell saddles with glued-on uniform-density foam became the norm in performance cycling. They were later made in different sizes and shapes for different sit-bone widths and riding styles, but riders would frequently try multiple saddles before finding one that fitted their body characteristics and position on the bike.
So with its One-to-One system, Fizik has simultaneously turned back the clock and revolutionised saddle technology. The project, which was four years in development, brought together industry-leading experts and academics with the aim of enabling riders once again to benefit from a saddle unique to them, with no trial and error necessary. Fizik said at its launch in June: “A traditional one-to-many saddle design can only provide an approximate solution to very specific problems. With One-to-One, today we achieve what every saddle manufacturer has always dreamed of: bringing to life customised support available to every cyclist.”
One-to-One is wonderfully simple for both the customer and the Fizik dealer who carries out the fitting session. A cover that contains 64 sensors is placed over the rider’s saddle on their own bike. These transmit dynamic information to an app while the rider pedals the bike on a Wahoo Kickr Rollr in different positions – on the hoods, the drops and the tops. In a two-stage process, the ideal saddle shape is firstly determined (from Fizik’s existing Adaptive range) and then the exact loading pattern is established which Fizik uses to build the bespoke 3D-printed padding. The custom saddle is produced at Fizik’s facility in Italy and shipped to either the dealer or the customer directly. Customers can return to the dealership for a final consultation session where their new pressure data is compared to their former saddle setup, highlighting the areas of improvement with actual percentages – peak pressure reduction, load area and left/ right balance.
Alex Locatelli, who conceived and then project-managed One-to-One, joined Fizik five years ago to work on the brand’s 3D-printed Adaptive saddles. This was Fizik’s first venture into 3D printing: the Adaptive saddles had separate padding zones according to where firmer or softer support was required. They were created using a process called Digital Light Synthesis, a proprietary 3D-printing process developed by Californian company Carbon. Locatelli remembers: “I spent a couple of weeks at Carbon in 2019 to better understand the technology; how we could make it work and apply it to saddle padding. Back then it was very complicated because at Carbon they didn’t know anything about saddles and at Fizik we didn’t know anything about 3D printing. So we both had to learn new languages, what were our needs to create padding for a performance saddle, how to interact with parameters, the printing, how to select the cell shapes themselves – because different cells respond differently – which were best for our application?”
Locatelli recalls that despite initially focusing on simply improving saddle comfort via 3D-printed zones, the team soon realised that the technology offered a much bigger opportunity. “We thought, okay, if we can make the middle softer and the back harder, with a progression inside the padding itself, then we might be able to create a custom saddle based on pressure mapping.”
He continues: “So we started thinking about how we could create pressure mapping that would be available for anyone to use, to make sure that the data received was good data. Because eventually if the customer is not in a good position or if the dealer placed the pressure mapping cover wrongly on the saddle, not aligned or centred, we would get wrong data and the final result wouldn’t be as good as it could be.”
Fizik went to German company GebioMized, who had developed a saddle pressure-mapping system already in use by bike fitters worldwide. “They are the fathers of pressure mapping,” says Locatelli, “and they created the first pressure-mapping system more than 20 years ago as university research. From that research they started a company. They had also dreamed for many years about a system that could provide a saddle but they didn’t have the technology back then, and neither did we. So we put everybody around a table and started discussing different solutions and eventually we aligned on a path towards what could be the system that Fizik wanted to provide for dealers and bike fitters. And we worked for almost four years to create One-to-One.”
Locatelli explains that the computer engineering that determines both the best saddle model and then creates the pressure map to be used in the 3D printing was hugely com- plex. “We had to create an algorithm that not only translated the pressure mapping into the language of the 3D printer but we also had to ensure the algorithm would take into consideration a lot of other parameters: which is the best Fizik saddle for them based not only on the shape of their sit bones but also on the way they sit on the saddle according to their pressure points, if they sit more on the front than the back, if they’re aligned left and right, if they’re moving around on the saddle into different positions while they’re pedalling – so this was a very important study that we had to do.”
According to Locatelli, the data gathered by the system from real-world customers is constantly fed back in order for the system to keep evolving. “It took quite a while to fine-tune the algorithm and we started at a very high level. The feedback that we’ve received so far is very very good, so we’ve been able to solve many issues. Now that we have started with the project, the data that we acquire will be data that we use to improve the algorithm as we continue, because there will be things that we don’t know now, also applications that we don’t have now but we might have in the future. It’s a constant improvement.”
One-to-One has had many test pilots and Fizik has also used its sponsored WorldTour team, Movistar. “When I discussed the project with the pro team,” says Locatelli, “I suggested to them that they could use the system for different stages of the season. On training camp in December probably the rider has a few extra kilos and less power, so that generates a different kind of pressure mapping. When they get into condition and racing, what you need from saddle support is different, so you can evolve your saddle with your physical shape. Or maybe if you get injured, you need to recover and you’re imbalanced between left and right. Then the saddle can help you get back to how you were. You get a saddle that can support you differently during the healing. But obviously for the majority of people it’s not possible to get a custom saddle every month – maybe a pro rider might get them from us as a sponsor, but our main customer is not the pro rider. We know that the saddle is one of the most important elements of the bicycle. If you feel pain on the saddle you could give up cycling altogether. So with this system we are convinced that we can create a unique system for each cyclist for their own bicycle.”
What happens in a Fizik One-to-One fitting?
The rider’s own bike is fixed into a Wahoo Kickr Rollr, which Fizik says is the simplest solution, since it’s not necessary to remove any part of the bicycle. Additionally the Kickr Rollr is reliable in terms of achieving pressure mapping data since it allows a small amount of movement at the rear that it says is “very similar to what you would get on the road”.
Next, the Fizik fitter starts the One-to-One app and completes the initial assessment with the customer. This is to gather information about saddle sensitivity, satisfaction with their current saddle shape, whether they have had a bike fit. The fitter scores each on a sliding scale. Fizik recommends a bike fit before the saddle analysis, since a less-than-optimal bike position can lead to less-than-optimal contact with the saddle, a situation not remedied simply by ordering a custom saddle. The current saddle mounting information is input using a jig – height, tilt, setback and so on – by the Fizik fitter.
Next the pressure mapping cover is mounted over the saddle and the sensor map is set up and paired with the app. After a warm-up, the rider starts pedalling first in the hoods, then the drops and then tops, with pressure data captured and transmitted to the app for each position.
The fitter views the pressure plot and the app suggests the ideal saddle from Fizik’s Adaptive range. The fitter removes the original saddle and fits the one suggested by the app. The bike fitter can of course override it and fit their own recommendation.
In step two, pressure mapping with the new saddle is restarted – on the hoods, drops and tops as before, but this time for the app to gather the data for making the custom saddle. The fitter views the pressure plot again, confirms and orders the saddle, along with carbon or kium rails. The delivery address is selected, whether directly to the customer or to the dealership. The process can take as little as 20 minutes.
Printing the saddle in Italy can take a couple of weeks. Once the saddle is received, the customer can go back to the dealership, where the fitter retrieves the session history and conducts another pressure mapping with the new saddle and compares the data against their original saddle. Peak pressure is commonly reduced by around 25 per cent, loaded area by 11 per cent (since the pressure is better spread over a more suitable saddle surface) and left/right balance (critical for pedalling efficiency) improved by 3.5 per cent. The final analysis can objectify whether there are improvements and what and where exactly they are.
Above the regular price of the Adaptive saddle there’s a 100 euro supplement for the One-to-One custom version.
