As you may know I have been training for the Seattle to Portland bike ride.  I bought my Cannondale road bike in college over ten years ago and I have not upgraded anything on it since then and I have been really happy with it.  Well I noticed the last few years that the bike seats started to have a grove in the middle of them to help relive some of the pressure you can feel down there when you have been on the seat for a while.  It never really bothered me before and the seats were kind of expensive when they first came out.  In the range of $100 or so and that is why I have not upgraded until now.  While looking for rain gear this year I wandered over to the wall that had all the bike seats on it.  I asked the sales guy what he recommended and he pointed out the specialized saddle for $35.  I thought for thirty five bucks I could try it out.  He said the only difference between that seat and the ones still going for a hundred was the weight.  I put it on my bike and it felt fine.  The last time I rode on my road bike with the old seat was at the end of last summer.  It had really been to long of a time between riding on the old seat and the new one to fairly compare the two and say which one was better.  Well I had confirmation on it this weekend.  My church had its yearly mens retreat this year over in Easton, Washington.  There was no good place to ride my road bike for a training ride over there but there were lots of good mountain bike trails.  So I took my mountain bike with its old school style seat.  About a hour into the ride I could no longer sit on the seat.  It hurt.  I was really missing my new seat on the road bike.  When I got home I went to the specialized website to find out what they had to say about why this new seat feels so much better on long rides.  Well what I read was surprising and my boys proved it this weekend.  When siting on a normal old style seat you only get 18 percent of the normal blood flow when compared to sitting in a padded chair.  With the new seat style you get eighty two percent.  Wow, that is a huge difference.  For more information you can check out specialized’s body geometry website.  Looks like I will be picking up one more seat before heading out on my mountain bike again.