Vince Marcel is a professional chiropractor and weekend-warrior triathlete who could never get quite comfortable on a saddle, often feeling pressure and pain in and around his sit bones. So, he designed his own, removing any areas that would contact the lower extremities of the pelvis.
Marcel’s Infinity design stands in stark contrast to modern saddle design, where the sitbones are supported and, ideally, the soft tissue between is given relief.
As to this fundamental difference between his design and that of the industry giants, Marcel is frank.
“I can’t comment on all their theories and thousands of dollars they spent on technologies,” Marcel said. “All I know is that I and many other people who rode these saddles still had pain.”
“After a while I got tired of the pain, and had to investigate exactly where I was feeling it with the tools I had available to me,” he said. “Even with a traditional cutout, at the end of the day, you still have pressure on the inside of the pubic bone.”
The Infinity saddle is 165mm/6.5in wide with a bowed shape. He took this to Cyclelogic in Scottsdale, Arizona, where digital pressure mapping showed that it did indeed reduce pressure at the sitbones, but also, Marcel claims, it reduced total pressure for the cyclist.
In a quick test of the saddle, there is indeed a noticeable absence of pressure under the sitbones — and no pressure on the soft tissue in between — but we found the pressure transferred to the wide edges of the saddle, which didn’t feel comfortable pedaling. Also, when rolling the hips forward into an aero position, most of our weight was shifted almost fully onto the soft tissues on the nose of the saddle.
However, Marcel says this design is not aimed at the high-mileage enthusiast, but instead at the average person who would like to hop on a bike every now and then and not feel pain.
The first product is the $70 Infinity Go, which weighs 190g. There is also a 170g carbon/nylon Infinity Elite in the works.
