This category is much like aerobars, in that it's hard to parse between the choice of athletes and the choice of product managers. Many aerobars, and many saddles, end up on bikes in Kona because boxes of them show up at the factory where the bikes are assembled, not because athletes take the affirmative act of choosing them.

As an example, at least 93 saddles in Kona were Taiwanese-made and of the "co-branded" variety. In other words various companies had their own saddles made, and put their own names on them. Are these saddle companies? Maybe not, but these saddles end up on bikes, and athletes don't feel the need, or haven't taken the time and spent the money, to replace them.

Then there are the coin flips. Is Bontrager a saddle company? It's debatable. Perhaps more than companies that don't ever sell their saddles aftermarket, but less so than a saddle-specific company. There were 17 Bontragers in the race, and odds are they were the OE saddles that came with the bike. This is not to say that Bontrager is simply a "house brand." It has done a fabulous job as a house brand for wheels, so that it's in the same league as Shimano when it comes to the value delivered for an aftermarket second set of wheels.

Specialized certainly is a saddle company, thought it's also a house-branded saddle. Do Specialized saddles make it onto other, non-Specialized bikes? Obviously, because there were 58 Specialized bikes in the race, and 86 of its saddles.

What we see, or have seen, is Selle Italia winning the saddle battle by large margins. But it doesn't win the battle by the margin it used to enjoy. Fizik has caught up during the last two years, and quickly. Partly, it's because Fizik also shows up as an OE saddle on the occasional brand. Also, it has become a favorite among aftermarket purchasers. Its Arione and Arione Tri are among the most successful tri-specific saddles in the market. If the trend continues forward as it has been over the past two years these top two companies are going to be close, perhaps in a horserace as imminently as this upcoming '07 Kona.

Selle San Marco is in third place, again party because of OE sales, but also because of the lingering effect of its blockbuster hit of 5 years ago, the Triathgel Azoto. This saddle is a little long in the tooth. It's an older model and has to some degree been overshadowed by the more recent successes, like Fizik, Selle Italia's SLR T1, Terry's Butterfly, and some interesting boutique offerings nibbling at the edges, like Koobi, Profile's TriStryke and the SLR Adamo.

Terry has done a wonderful job of going after the women's market. If you assume that Terry saddles are sold only to women, this saddle captured roughly the same percentage of its market in Kona (28%) as the leading saddle maker, Selle Italia, captured in the overall field (29%).