Best Bike Seat of 2018: Complete Reviews and Comparisons

The Giddy Up! Bike Seat aims to deliver a reliable and comfortable ride for a variety of users, whether it be for indoor fitness bikes or outdoor road bikes. This bike seat offers all of the fundamentals as well as a few added extras, making it great for all users.

The Giddy Up! Bike Seat offers the following:

• Comfort: With two-inch thick memory foam padding, this seat perfectly contours to your body shape each time you sit down. This allows for more comfortable rides across greater distances before the feeling of numbness kicks in. The front end of the saddle also has a narrow design, allowing for more thigh room and preventing the seat from inhibiting the cycling motion.
• Fitting: To allow a variety of riding styles, this seat includes adjusting clamp that fit a double rail clamp. This lets users customize the position of their seating with ease. This seat also comes with all of the necessary tools required for a quick and easy setup.
• Shock absorption: To provide a smoother ride, this bike seat uses a dual-shock absorber system with a shock absorbing ball located under each side of the saddle. Couple this with the thick seat padding and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a smooth ride.

We love that this bike seat doesn’t simply offer fantastic features but also provides buyers with a bunch of useful accessories all for the same price. Buyers will benefit from a hi-vis reflective band for enhanced road safety, a service and maintenance e-book for any bike related concerns, a waterproof seat cover for when the weather takes a turn, and the aforementioned toolset that allows for a quick and easy installation.

While having a waterproof cover for the seat is fantastic, we’re not entirely sure of why the seat itself wasn’t made waterproof in the first place. This is quite an essential feature for those who ride their bikes all year round and having to take a seat cover everywhere you go seems a little unnecessary, especially when seats in the same class offer fully waterproofed seating.

Buying bike seats can be a lot more difficult than you’d first imagine, especially for those who have never bought a bike seat before. Thus, we’ll take a look at some of the features you should keep an eye out for when purchasing your first (or any) bike seat.

When it comes to the cover material of your bike seat, there are a couple of things you may want to consider such as:

• Waterproofing: Regardless of what material is used, you want to know its level of water resistance. Realistically, you should be looking for bike seats that are waterproof as opposed to water resistant as these seats will be able to handle poor weather better and have a more extended life expectancy.
• Durability: Many bike seats are made out of either PVC leather, real leather, or some form of a plastic polymer. In regards to durability, you really do get what you pay for, and genuine leather is an extremely durable, tear-resistant, and naturally weatherproof material but does come with a heftier price tag. On the other hand, PVC leather and plastic polymer’s durability is often reflected in the price; cheaper seats will use cheaper materials and techniques. That being said, you can still get very high-end plastic seats that are extremely durable.

The shell of a bike seat refers to the hardened frame that creates the base of the bike seat, and it often determines the posture of the rider through their diverse designs. Wider seats often encourage a more upright and relaxed posture whereas longer narrow seats require the rider to lean forward. The latter type of shell is often used for racing or fitness bikes as opposed to the former that you’ll find on leisure or commuter bikes.

Shells are often made from injected molded plastic, most commonly nylon, but can also be mixed with carbon fiber to produce a lighter weight and more flexible design. The carbon fiber mixes are often found on more high-end bike seats where every ounce matters.

Bike seat grooves and cut-outs offer a few benefits to riders such as increased airflow to prevent overheating, reduced overall weight for increased speed, or even altering ergonomics through rider positioning. Less regular riders typically won’t find the need for cut-outs or grooves as they are on their bikes for short periods of time. On the other hand, long-distance or commuter riders should definitely consider them.

The comfort of a bike is by far one of the most important features of a bike seat. There is a variety of factors that come into play when looking at the padding of a bike seat such as the general shape, size, cover material, padding type used, and design.

As great as a bike seat may sound, it is always important to try the seat beforehand whenever possible. Everyone has different tastes as well as body shapes, so a seat that is great for someone else might be terrible for you.

Typically, we find memory foam padding to be the most comfortable, but some riders complain that it leaves them floating on the seat and not feeling secure. So, get out there and try as many seats as possible.

When it comes to saddle rails, it’s imperative to take note of their range of adjustment since clamping too close to the corners of carbon rails can lead to damage and eventual failure. It’s also good to measure the size of the rails to ensure that they are compatible with the seat posts and saddle clamps, especially since carbon fiber tubes typically require larger clamp ranges.

When it comes to the type of cushioning on your bike seat, you’ll really want to consider the end use of your bike and the style of cycling that you most often partake in. Leisure and commuter riders are more likely looking for a comfortable ride and will look for thicker cushioning around all areas of the seat. On the contrary, racers or fitness cyclists will most likely want thinner cushioning for weight reduction and greater freedom of movement as they’re also likely to spend shorter periods of time on the seats.

With a wide variety of bike seats available, there are many methods available to adjust bike seats. The most common way to adjust modern-day bike seats is through the clamp that connects the seat to the bike itself. This can often be tilted to varying degrees as well as can be moved further forward or backward.

You’ll simply need to loosen the clamp with tools often provided with the purchase, but if you have a clamp that can be hand tightened, simply twist the clamp until it’s loose before removing or repositioning the seat.

The height of the bike seat comes down to nothing more than personal preference, and this will predominantly be determined by your style of riding. Casual riders are more likely to have a lower seat for a more relaxed ride whereas fitness riders will have a higher seat to better support themselves as they lean forward for more intense cycling. The height of your seat will also be determined by your height as a rider and the size of your bike.

When it comes to removing your bike seat, you can often follow the same process as you would adjust the seat. Your bike though will most likely come with a set of instructions, and it’s best to follow these as they can precisely point out the best method for seat removal.

New bike seats will also come with a set of instructions on how to carry out this process. More often than not, you’ll simply loosen the seat with an Allen key and spanner before fully removing the seat from the post and before replacing it.

Again, lowering the bike seat will be carried out through the adjustment of the specific clamping system integrated into your bike. These are often tightened or loosen by hand. This can be done by twisting clockwise to tighten and counter-clockwise to loosen.

The best way to make bike seats more comfortable is to buy an external cover that acts in the same way as a rain cover but lined with a series of padding to increase the rider’s comfort. However, you may not even need to buy an additional cover since the discomfort could be derived from your seating position. Hence, try to adjust the handlebar, seat height, and seat angle to find the most comfortable configuration for you.

With the market being rife with fantastic offers and a great variety of bike seat, there isn’t a better time to add a little comfort to your ride. Our recommendation as the best bike seat of 2018 would be the Daway C99 as it offers a considerable amount of features, it’s incredibly lightweight, and it’s also completely waterproof, making it useful throughout the entire year. Its padding might not be as thick as other bike seats, but it makes up for this by utilizing memory foam padding for extra comfort.

For those who are a bit more budget conscious, then you might want to consider the Schwinn Quilted Bike Seat. This seat offers a good level of comfort for a lower price. Yes, you would miss out on some of the extra features, but this is a great first-time purchase.