Former German road cyclist André Greipel, known for his victories in seven stages at the Giro d'Italia, eleven at the Tour de France and four at the Vuelta a España, continues to have a great passion for cycling. Since 2023, Greipel has been the technical commissioner of the German national road team and, since this year, he’s the founder and manager of a new youth team: the Radsport Academy. For his daily rides, he chose our F20C s.i. saddle. We had the opportunity to ask him some questions to find out his impressions on using this saddle. Here's what he told us:
André, how would you describe the comfort of the F20C s.i. during long rides? Have you noticed improvements in your performance thanks to this saddle?
The saddle is always a specific and delicate topic. In this case it felt immediately comfortable also during long rides. In addition, the ergonomics of the F20C s.i. helped me to keep the correct position without slipping forward.
The F20C s.i. is designed to adapt to the cyclist's morphology. How does it fit to you and your pedaling style?
The shape of the saddle makes it always comfortable and it adapts very well to my body. Especially the shape of the nose minimises the pressure on delicate parts.
The saddle has high quality materials such as the carbon rail (or AISI 304 steel) and the carbon-reinforced nylon12 body. How important is the durability of the saddle for you and how does the F20C s.i. perform in this sense?
For every rider it is important that the saddle holds the original shape even after time and many rides. This is definitely the case of the F20C s.i. thanks to the carbon reinforced shell and carbon or Aisi 304 steel rail.
On what types of bikes have you used the F20C s.i. saddle? Road bike, gravel ride… How did you perform in each discipline?
I used the saddle on both road and Gravel bikes and even in cyclocross the F20C s.i. is really helpful and comfortable. Even in the most stressful situations, like jumping on the bike, the saddle performed great.
The F20C s.i. has no padding. How does this affect your feeling of control and stability during your rides?
At first sight the saddle seems hard but its ergonomics perfectly fits my body really well. Therefore I fell there‘s no need of padding.
Selle SMP’s rails are the longest on the market and thanks to this you can have maximum fore-aft adjustment range. How important it is for you to be able to adjust the saddle precisely and this feature helped you?
Bike fitting is always more important in cycling. Especially to get the position right to open up the hips, the long rails of SMP saddles are helping a lot to put the saddle as much as possible to the front, which is good for my specific position. These rails allow me to get over the bottom bracket for a good fluent pedal stroke.