Selle San Marco Mantra Superleggera Open saddle review

If you want a lightweight saddle then you should certainly take a good look at the Selle San Marco Mantra Superleggera Open. You'll struggle to find anything lighter with the same level of comfort.

At a very svelte 114g, it’ll certainly help keep the weight down on your steed. Each Selle San Marco Mantra Superleggera Open saddle is hand made, meaning that each will come out at a slightly different weight. Selle San Marco promises no saddle will weigh more than 117g but if you get lucky yours could be even lighter than ours at 114g.

The party piece of the Superleggera is the carbon rail, which Selle San Marco says will allow you to use all of it for fitting purposes: usually you have limits as to how far forward or back the saddle can go.

However, the joining cross section of the rails – located towards the front of the saddle – can limit saddle position (this was evident with the Pinarello Dogma F8 seat clamp), meaning it has a setback limit on certain designs.

It is a flat saddle and personally liking the Fizik Arione shape, I liked this too. It allows for a little bit of forward or backwards movement on top of the saddle for different riding positions.

Even with the relief channel (the cut-out) you’ll be able to find all kinds of riding positions, including a pretty aggressive on-the-nose style, without any obstruction or lack of comfort.

However, a small niggle for me is the size of the ‘wings’ at the rear, which can be fairly noticeable when sitting back in the saddle, especially on climbs.

It is a decent lightweight option – not totally perfect for me but with such a lightweight saddle you have to expect one or two shortcomings. The main thing is that it remains comfortable, even over long distances.