Selle Anatomica Goes Back to the Future

Update 1-11-13: We received a nice email from Selle Anatomica pointing out that their new TruLeather saddles have always been made of 100% leather--they mix different types of leather. TruLeather is different only in the way it has been tanned; it's designed to be stiffer than SA's other saddles.

SA's Ryan Hosmer wrote:

Eric,

We saw your post on our new TruLeather and thought we'd take this opportunity to clarify a few points. 

First, both TruLeather as well as our Watershed leather offerings are reinforced by the same laminates. Laminate is simply our word for a thin stiff piece of cow hide (not synthetic) that we glue to the underside of our leather tops to reinforce them. Our saddles have always been made of 100% leather. 

TruLeather is commonly referred to in the leather industry as veg (pronounced vej). It gets its name from the vegetable oil used in the tanning process. The net result is a stiffer piece of leather than our Watershed offering. 

TruLeather will come from the factory pre-treated with Selle Anatomica Saddle Sauce, an acrylic based product that seals the leather and will repel the water.

Please feel free to post portions or all of this email to your blog for your reader's clarification.

Kind Regards,

Ryan Hosmer

Selle Anatomica 

Our original blog post follows after the break.


Saddle maker Selle Anatomica made its name building saddles made from a laminated mix of leather and synthetic layers. They've sold a ton of saddles, and have quite a following.

So CampyOnlyGuy was a little surprised to hear that SA is now offering saddles made of ... just leather. SA calls this "new" product "TruLeather," which they point out is tanned with all natural products. They also say that TruLeather address one of the perennial complaints about Selle Anatomica saddles by promising less stretch.
We haven't seen one of the new SA saddles yet (we'll let you know if we have a chance to ride one), but it seems that they're taking aim at Saddle maker Rivet (an offshoot of SA that also offers laminated saddles) and fans of all-leather Brooks saddles.
TruLeather saddles start at $129. More details at www.selleanatomica.com