Meld offers custom built saddles for all shapes and sizes

Oh hey, I used to ride with the dude who runs Meld. Ethan, congratulations on going into business. Nice looking product, might be what I need out of life.

Hey Dirk, I hope your ankle is getting better. It’s a shame you missed all those Egan rides.

Hi Andrew, we do not replicate saddle shapes from other manufacturers. We do offer multiple parameters which you can tweak to get (almost?) the same effect. We’re also happy to listen to any feedback, just drop us an email at (info at meld3d.com), or leave a message on Facebook (facebook.com/meld3d). Finally, we store everyone’s saddle model and anatomy geometry info indefinitely, so we shouldn’t have the issue of saddles being discontinued.

The Meld3d concept is great – a custom seat with custom graphics at a very fair price. Unfortunately Meld does not offer understand customer experience and takes great offense if you ask questions about the art process or their seat measurement recommendations. Basically, you need to fit into their expected process or there will be no seat for you. Yes, Ethan and team cancelled my order, stating “You believe that your way of doing things is correct and the only way, and you believe that we have a team dedicated to working on exactly what you want.” This was in response to asking them questions about logo aspect ratios and why their seat width was 30mm less than what I ride on. These were legitimate questions about a product I’ve literally never seen regarding personalization recommendations I simply didn’t fully understand. Meld has no phone numbers anywhere, so you can’t speak to them in person. I even asked for a phone number, because email is not an ideal way to work through issues and was not provided one.

My complaints aside, I still actually want the seat but was completely turned down. Here’s tips for those who like the concept as much as I do: For artwork, Meld does not take standard vector-based print formats (Illustrator), they ask for a URL to your artwork you have to upload separately. Keep in mind that web-friendly artwork (i.e. a cycling club logo on a website) is usually a substandard resolution for physical printing, looking like a home arts & crafts project. Their toolset auto-resizes your artwork, so try uploading a 2x or 3x higher resolution. Artwork running down the center channel is obviously a completely different size than a cut-out, but can look amazing with enough trial and error. Unfortunately, there is no information about print ramifications from Meld at all.

Melds’ width recommendation is your sit-bone dimensions + 20mm. This formula either comes from or is validated by Cervelo engineers… but can result in a width recommendation that is a lot narrower than you’d expect (if you know to look in the first place). With the variations of seat shape, back lift, front rolloff, etc, this may not even matter… but it’s unclear within their process. I’m currently going through a custom bike build, where every measurement has both an impact and ultimately an explanation. The assumption that a personalized fit works out perfectly every time, but the reality is simply not that simple. Collaboration and education are vital to the success of custom projects. Hopefully others can learn from my mistakes.

A quick note on custom bike building vs custom saddle design

For a custom bike, we probably already know quite well details of the bike we want, such as the geometry. We convey this information to the bike builder: we talk, or do a short write-up of our requirements. The builder may have his/her opinions and feedback, and after some to-and-fro, we get the bike we want. This process works because the information we convey is correct and effective.

Designing the right custom saddle does not work the same way. Many of us do not know our sitbone widths. Some of us sit on our perineums mistaking it for our sitbones. And in general, we most likely do not have the best points of reference with regards to saddles: the design we want is limited to our experiences with past saddles. We don’t know if, and how, saddles can be better, and we don’t know that we don’t know.

As a result, if we convey what we want, in words or text, to the custom saddle designer, the information is probably incorrect and we’re very likely to get it wrong. This means we’ll have to redo the design, which means it ends up being a trial-and-error process. And even in that case, folks who know only about sitting on their perineums will continue doing so and end up with the least uncomfortable saddle, because that’s all they know about with regards to sitting on saddles.

Hence, a lot of the design decisions going into making a saddle does not come from us, in words or text. Instead, we have to look at the ‘ground truth’, which is the anatomy itself. There are other factors, such as how we use the saddle (whether we move fore/aft a lot), which we can provide feedback for. But, we, as users, should not trust ourselves to fully decide e.g. how wide the saddle should be.

By making most of the saddle design decisions based on the anatomy and not our verbal/written inputs, and by getting feedback on how to install and use the saddle (e.g. don’t sit on our perineums), we dramatically increase the chances of getting the saddle right the very first time. Trial-and-error, and the resulting frustration, is largely eliminated.

This is the reason why Meld does not, and cannot, approach custom saddle design the same way folks approach custom bike building.

In my case, I got my saddle and went for a long ride, was uncomfortable after about 40 miles. So, I contacted Meld to get some advice.

After giving a rough approximation on where the discomfort was, and sending in some photos, they declared that my “equipment was incompatible” because, in their opinion, my saddle was too far back and couldn’t be moved forward.

I did reply that I have had a professional bike fitting, and know exactly where the saddle should be, and that they didn’t understand the design of the Look 595 seatpost which can itself adjust the saddle forward and thus I had plenty of adjustability to move the saddle forward.

Regardless they insist on “equipment incompatibility”.

My recommendation is, if you are going the Meld route, that you insist determining equipment compatibility first. You should be able to do what I did; with photos show current setup and where your discomfort with you existing saddle(s) is. They should be able to determine this before you plop the bucks down.

That being said, most modern saddle manufacturers offer a good range of different saddle and can help you find the right anatomical one based on your sitbone width (not hard to determine that) and your riding position. And they generally will let you try and exchange until you find the right one.

My experience with Meld was a disappointing expensive waste of time…

Not a lot of great feedback. MELD continues to have problems and then point to their customers.

https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=152781&start=15

Just went through the start of the process with these guys. The sour reviews are accurate. Slow to receive the mold kit. I wrote a note on the mold box “please call me to discuss options” and my phone number so as to dial in what I was looking for and get exactly what I wanted. I mean, these are custom saddles, right? Sent it in… No phone call. I bumbled through the clickers on the dashboard and submitted the request. I followed up with an email – please confirm that I did in fact select tall carbon rails (as that is somehow chosen on a different dashboard screen). The email I got back said “We reviewed all communications from you. It seems that the services we provide aren’t a good fit for you, and we don’t think we should continue with the process. We have provided a full refund, thank you for your interest in our saddles.”

I have received no such refund.

I ordered a custom saddle and wanted to discuss specifics – literally got told that we’re unwilling to provide customer service and help you out – here’s not your money back.

Unbelievable.

DO NOT TRUST