While there are now a fair number of suspension seatposts on the market, the Sangle-Fit is a bit different. It features a tilting nose, designed to both smooth out the ride and make hill-climbing easier.
Manufactured by Korean company Creven Bike & Components, the 6061 aluminum-bodied Sangle-Fit features a pivot in the rear, a coil spring in the front, and standard seat rail clamps on top. Its nose is thus able to tilt downwards by up to 15 degrees, in response to pressure applied through a third-party saddle by the rider’s butt/crotch.
This setup does allow the Sangle-Fit to soak up some road vibrations and small bumps, although a seatpost that allows the entire saddle to move up and down would likely work better. That said, it’s also claimed to facilitate the climbing of hills.
For riding on the flats, experts typically recommend that the saddle be more or less horizontally level – perhaps even tilted up slightly at the front. When pedalling up hills, however, it’s easier on the rider’s back and groin if the nose of the saddle is angled down and out of the way. There are some devices that allow users to change that angle with the flip of a lever, but the idea with the Sangle-Fit is that the angle will change automatically, as downward pressure is applied when the cyclist shifts their weight forward.
And as an added bonus, Creven claims that its seatpost also helps riders to tuck their bodies down low when descending steep hills.
The Sangle-Fit (an amalgamation of “saddle angle fit”) is 380 mm long, fits 27.7-mm diameter seat tubes, weighs a claimed 515 g (18 oz) and can handle riders weighing up to 120 kg (264 lb). Its suspension resistance can be set to three different levels by swapping in different springs.
Nose-tilting bicycle seatpost designed for better hill climbing [New Atlas]