Selle Italia Mythos Saddle - the Buyer's Guide, 2015

The Selle Italia Mythos is a successor of the Italia Flite, with added weight reductions from the careful removal of a strip of the middle of the saddle tail area. The shell is made of molded nylon, with a section 20mm wide at the rear tapering to 10mm wide after a 120mm length taken from the middle. The shell is covered with very high density, molded foam rubber that covers the top and most of the shell. A smooth Black leather is sewn to cover squarely the edge of the missing center section, with a nice and delicate rolled edge. The sewn leather piece is then exquisitely cemented to the padding with 3/8" of the cover lapping up under the underside of the shell where it is carefully glued down. There is a molded plastic housing with the rear rail receivers, which also holds in place the leather cover at the underside of the tail section. This housing is held in place with glue and two screws. A molded plastic shroud also covers the tip of the saddle. Held in place with glue and a screw this shroud prevents the excess wear that often occurs at the saddle tip.

There has been a falsehood in the advertising of this saddle, which might have been attributed to poor translating of the Italian. All along the Mythos has been said to have a "Vanadium" rail, and , in fact, the interior packaging says, "The frame, (rail assembly..) is in extremely strong, non-deformable and lightweight Vanadium tube." The Silver painted rail assembly on the side reads "Vanadium 0.9" which is very revealing. Vanadium is an alloying element, not used in its pure form for something like a rail assembly, but is frequently alloyed in carbon steel. In fact, when you look at a list of steel alloys that use around .9% Vanadium you find that Chromium- Molybdenum (Cro-Moly) tool steel is a frequent user. Chromium-molybdenum-vanadium steels can contain around .5% Carbon, 5% Chromium, 1% Molybdenum and .85% Vanadium. The Vanadium raises the softening temperature of the steel, and these alloys are used for bolts, and steam turbine rotors (Group H) or cutting tools and high temperature structural components (Group T). You will learn in the Vetta section of this article that Selle Italia makes many or all of the Vetta saddles. The Vetta SL and the Vetta SP Vanadium saddles have a hollow Cro-Moly rail assembly that's painted Grey. We suspect this is the same tubing with a flattened side, painted Silver. The Mythos is available only in a Racing style with a Black leather cover and weighs 199 1/2 grams. $ Price in Catalog

SELLE ITALIA MYTHOS