C-Forum

its time for a saddle in my canoe. i am 6'4" with sz14 foot. i got my feet snagged under my traditional canoe seat in a play and ruined my season. so now i am about to rip out the web seat for something safe. any big butts got a good set up they could post a picture of? i can't afford to buy the wrong thing for my canoe.

Make it wide. Narrow saddles hit a nerve & make you think your ankles hurt.

Perception saddle??

Mike W, what do you recommend for a wide saddle? I know the feeling of that nerve getting pinched. Never thought about a wider saddle. Any companies producing a good one?

Wides make a difference. I cut my saddle down the center, added 1" of foam, glued back together and recut the contours. Going from 8 to 9 wide is an improvement. It helps to have a high cut bandsaw to make a nice cut. My saddles are also 9" high. The extra hight is also important with long legs and feet

The other option is stretching, I'm 6'4" (ish), size 13 feet, 36" inseam and 200lb with big calves and thighs from cycling... with regular stretching, I can paddle my squirtboat with a 2" saddle, for up to an hour before it becomes uncomfortable, and my creekboat with a 5" saddle almost indefinately...

I find that footpeg position in terms of how much it makes you bend your knees and push you calves into your thighs, makes more of a difference than saddle height to comfort in my OC1's (prelude is at 7", CU-fly is at 1'0")

All of my saddles are 10" wide now. This makes getting my feet out of the Big EZ & slalom boat pretty tricky though. Hope I never have to swim.

Mike W,
I suggest tapering that saddle. Keep it wide at top, cut a wedge out so it's only, let's say, 6" wide at the bottom. Plenty of room for the feet this way, if you know what I mean.

I have tapered the saddles in most of my boats & the bottom of the hip-pads in the Big EZ to help funnel my feet out. This makes it easier to get out, allows my feet to be under me & have better alignment in the boat & saves $$ on foam. The Nova has Mad Dog hip pads that don't give. It would probably help if I could stand a saddle lower than 7", but that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

after running 30+ miles of whitewater this weekend the seat collapsed after cracking my ash gunnels upta dead rvier @2400cfs. i got to see many saddles and thought they all were to narrow for a guy with bigstones. i like the idea of cutting and widening a stock saddle. but i know what i want to make i just need to tool up and get the foam. winter is coming and i need something to do. i'm thinking cover a pile of sand with plastic sit my butt down to get a measure

yup i just blow the balance of my $rent$ and bought n NRS saddle. i should have it set up for next weekend test before the next dead river trip. now to think about hip pads.

Just curious. What's the NRS Saddle? Is there a picture online?

padz canoe saddle at nrs web site.

i feel like the kid that saved his money to buy the secret spy ring in the back of a comiic book ...NRS shoulb be embarassed for selling this tiny block of foam as a saddle! $75 is a weeks worth of food at my house. just needed to vent out and say i bought the wrong saddle and should have made my own from scratch.

You get what you pay for and foam is pretty expensive. You could probably return it.