About the Manufacturer
There’s not many names bigger in the cycling world than Ritchey. The child of renowned road and mountain cyclist Tom Ritchey (who still owns and runs the company), the company started in 1974 to challenge some of the bigger players in the market and the conventional thinking in cycling at the time. While Ritchey was already by this point a well regarded frame-builder, his new company and their Fit Logic philosophy started to introduce some big innovations into the road and mountain biking worlds, including innovations in tube design and welding and new thinking around cartridge sealing and the bottom bracket.
Today, Ritchey continues to manufacture road, mountain and gravel frames with a huge range of aftermarket parts and accessories made to the founder’s exacting specifications.
About the Saddle
The Ritchey Skyline is one of the newest additions to the brand’s saddle lineup, only being a couple of years out. The saddle is designed for this with medium to low flexibility and need more support for their sit bones and more perineal relief. With this in mind the saddle comes with a gentle rise in the shell and the padding towards the rear of the saddle and a large cutout in the centre of the saddle for perineal relief. With this being the “WCS” version of the saddle, the specs are upgraded to feature a carbon fibre and fibreglass composite shell with hollow titanium rails over the Cro-Mo rails featured on the comp.
Positives and Negatives
We always start our saddle reviews by saying that saddles are a deeply personal things. As always do some proper measurements and demos before you put down you hard earned cash – especially if the model in question is thin on magazine and customer reviews. That being said, we got along very well with the WCS skyline with it reminding us of one of our firm (pun not intended) favourites, the Bontrager Montrose Elite. In fact the overall dimensions, perennial cut out and perforated synthetic cover are very alike, although the Skyline is a smidgen longer. We found the Skyline to be comfortable and supportive on long rides and good when perched on the front for hills, although the stronger members of the team found a bit of flex in it when really hammering for the line.
Our review piece was definitely not new and had some scuffs on the left side with the upper starting to come away underneath on the same side. It held for our review period and is most likely the result of poor care rather than an issue related to the product. One to note if you are shopping for one however.
Key Specifications
- 7x7mm Hollow titanium rails
- Patented Vector Wing System
- Superlight foam
- Microfiber cover
- 275g
- Nylon + carbon fiber shell
- 145mm width x 270mm length
Pros
- We like!
- Nice understated finish
- Comfortable and stiff
Cons
- Bigger riders noticed a little bit of flex under load
