Essax Shark saddle review

Its innovative design certainly raises eyebrows, and Essax are making some big claims about its performance benefits, but does this play out on the road?

Essax Shark saddle

Cycling Weekly Verdict

The Essax Shark saddle is an interesting concept and certainly makes you concentrate more on keeping your hips straight in the saddle. The ride is nowhere near as uncomfortable as you’d expect, and performance good. We were also impressed by the light weight, especially given the chrome/nickel rail and the price.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Innovative design

  • +

    Light weight

  • +

    Fairly comfortable

  • +

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Better rails available for the price

  • -

    Doubts over durability

  • -

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

The Essax Shark saddle created quite a stir when we first reported that the Spanish brand would be entering the UK market. Some of you were, to say the least, not convinced, and many of the Facebook and Twitter comments can’t be repeated here. However what our testers discovered was a saddle that defied appearances to offer a fairly comfortable ride and a decent level of performance.

>>>Buyer's guide to road saddles

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Henry Robertshaw began his time at Cycling Weekly working with the tech team, writing reviews, buying guides and appearing in videos advising on how to dress for the seasons. He later moved over to the news team, where his work focused on the professional peloton as well as legislation and provision for cycling. He's since moved his career in a new direction, with a role at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.