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| User Interface |
These instructions provide you with the basic knowledge required to use the Velometrik© saddle pressure mat in conjunction with the associated software. Please read these instructions carefully and deepen your knowledge with your own experiments before you start advising your customers.
First of all, some general considerations on the subject of bicycle saddles and the question why a saddle is perceived as comfortable or not.
Every cyclist has a certain weight, of which a certain part presses on the saddle. How large this part is, depends essentially on two things:
• Depending on the seating position, a greater or lesser portion of the weight lands on the handlebars.
• Depending on the athleticism of the rider, a large portion of the weight (for an athletic rider) or a smaller portion (for a leisurely rider) goes into the pedals.
There are a number of things you can change for the rider:
• You can give him a saddle that is better suited for him.
• You can adjust the handlebars differently to accommodate the seating position.
• You can adjust the saddle better.
But there is something you cannot change: That is the overall pressure that the rider puts on the saddle.
Now the trick is to select and adjust the saddle so that this total pressure is optimally distributed. After all, pressure peaks that act on the same part of the body over a longer period of time are unpleasant.
Generally, the more comfortable saddle is the one that distributes the total pressure as widely as possible.
You can quickly see this when comparing two images. With a little practice, you can recognize rough problems even without a comparison image.
To learn how to use the system, we recommend that you test three to four saddles yourself, draw up a personal ranking list and then compare the pressure images recorded on your bike - with each other and with what you feel when riding with the corresponding saddle. Do this even different settings.
There are different sensitive areas of the body. If necessary, pressure must be redirected from a sensitive to a less sensitive area.
To "read" the print images correctly, you must first be able to interpret the colors. These always go from dark blue for minimum pressure through green and yellow to red for maximum pressure. The following therefore applies:
The highest pressure measured is always displayed in red, regardless of how large it is, regardless of whether it is likely to be uncomfortable or not.
This makes sense because it ensures that the available color spectrum is always fully utilized despite strong differences in the measured values from driver to driver.
Now please look at the following two pictures. One of the saddles was found to be uncomfortable, the other was the optimum for the same driver.
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| Saddle 1 | Saddle 2 |
At first glance, saddle 2 seems to be the unpleasant one because its print image contains more red. In truth, however, the two pressure images say something different: In saddle 2, the pressure is distributed over a much larger area, especially at the higher pressures, which is much more pleasant than the concentration of a lot of pressure over a very small area in saddle 1.
What you can't see here yet is that the pressure maximum at saddle 2 is lower than at saddle 1. You'll learn how to recognize this with our software below.
Before you move on to the practice, there are a few things you need to know about the pressure mat.
It is a soft, pressure-sensitive material from which data is taken at over 400 measurement points. The mat is larger than would be required for most athletic saddles. This has the advantage that you don't necessarily need different pressure mats for different saddles, but it also requires you to consider the following:
Pressure is created in the mat not only when you squeeze it, but also when it is bent. As a result, the edges of the saddle usually display pressures that can reach the maximum measurable in magnitude, which is far above the pressures that normally occur.
Without countermeasures, these pressures would be reflected in the measurements and provide unusable results. The countermeasure is to mask out the measurement points at the edge to the point where they no longer contribute as a significant factor. You do this by selecting a suitable mask. This is similar to putting on a smaller mat, but it is much faster.
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| Pressure point and indication in case of disturbance due to kink |
The above section from the user interface shows a high pressure at the rear edge of the saddle. You can see from the display for the maximum pressure, where the red bar goes all the way to the end that this pressure is extremely high , i.e. to the maximum that can be measured. However, as soon as you have selected a mask that switches off this disturbing measuring point, a completely different picture emerges.
The switched off measuring points are displayed in gray and the red bar has almost disappeared. Two small pressure points are still visible, the left one of which is exposed to the current maximum pressure. However, this is so low that it can be ignored. You can see that this is indeed the case by the almost non-existent deflection at the maximum display. These small dots are therefore not disturbing and since they often flicker without any visible effect, we also speak of "noise" here.
You may observe that the extremely high pressure already decreases when someone sits down on the mat. Nevertheless, use a mask, because generally a pressure point remains, even if it is smaller, but still distorting.
Below you can see a comparison. Once without and once with a selected mask. You can create, adapt and save your own masks in the mask menu (user interface [4]).
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| Measurement image without mask | Measurement image with mask |
Now is the time to move into practice.
The saddle must be mounted, and should already be aligned. The bike is best on a roller trainer and must be adjusted for the rider.
Before the saddle mat is put on, a test seat without the mat is recommended because, although the mat is relatively thin, it does change the feel of the seat. Experience has shown that it is easier to find the right sitting position with the saddle mat if you have "test sat" without the mat shortly before.
Now slide the saddle mat over the saddle. Make sure that the marking seam along the center runs along the saddle axis. Tighten the cord located at the back only enough to prevent the mat from shifting when you sit on it. Over tightening can create too many of the annoying buckling pressure points.
The saddle mat must be connected to the system, if not already done, and the evaluation software must then be started. Allow a few seconds after connecting to allow the system to initialize. After starting the software, wait again a little while until the analysis software and mat controller have synchronized.
Now a mask can be selected as described above.
Keep the selected mask for the entire analysis! Pressure images taken with different masks are not comparable with each other.
To obtain an evaluable print image, recording and averaging must be performed over a certain period of time.
You start the recording by clicking on the left or right camera symbol (Control [1]). Recording starts after the set delay time, the "count down", and continues over the recording interval set on the left (Control [2]). When recording starts, the correct sitting position must already be assumed. Sliding back and forth during recording should be avoided. If this happens, start from the beginning. The gray progress bar visible in the image (Control [3]) disappears to the left during count down and goes back to the right during recording, so you can always see exactly how much time is left. Use the adjustable delay to experiment yourself! To do so, set it large enough to give you enough time to take a seat on the bike and find the right seating position.
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| Control |
Also look at the live image on the left while sitting on the bike. Can you see what you feel there? Observe it closely and try it with different saddles and settings. In the future, this will enable you to understand your customers' problems based on the pressure image.
With the first pressure image, you also have an initial reference image that serves as a starting point for everything else.
The pressure evaluation follows the principle of comparing an unknown value with a known value.
With the first pressure image you have a reference, which you compare with other images to find out which is better. Here, "better" stands for "more widely distributed pressure and lower maximum with as little pressure as possible in sensitive areas". Each additional image (usually the better one) can now serve as a reference for further comparisons. You successively compare only two images with each other until there is no further room for improvement.
The following image is an example of what you will see after two recordings.
Everything looks the same as in the images shown at the beginning and must be judged in exactly the same way. However, you now have the option to switch the display to comparison mode (checkbox "Comparison" on the left). In the comparison mode, the larger of the maxima of both saddles is used as a reference value for the coloring, so that a clearly different picture is created:
Now the red in the left saddle indicates a problem that the right saddle does not. Simply switch the comparison mode on and off. The changing pressure image shows the more suitable saddle.
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| absolut mode | compare mode |
For a saddle consultation, you will generally have to take more than two pressure images. To save a captured image, press the button with the floppy disk icon.
Before doing so, it is recommended to enter the email address of the rider as well as the saddle brand and type. Otherwise, the later assignment of the saved pressure image will be more difficult.
The file directory of the system is used for saving. First the selection dialog for the directory appears.
The default directory is "Saddle Pressure Images". You can simply press OK to select this. If the number of stored images becomes larger, it is useful to create sub directories. You do this by entering a slash "/" followed by the new directory in the "Selection:" input field after the directory name. To create and select the entered, new directory, press OK twice. After that the dialog for saving appears.
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| Directory Selection | Save Dialog |
A file name is suggested which is always unique with date and time, but otherwise meaningless. You should therefore replace the part "saddle" with a more meaningful name. It makes sense, for example, to create subdirectories with the customer names and to replace "saddle" with the saddle type. Notes on different settings should be entered in the "Note:" field beforehand.
You can open saved images by clicking on the folder icon.
Now you know almost everything to get the most out of your Velometrik© saddle mat.
1. as mentioned above, you can only compare pressure images that were taken with the same mask. To check this, turn on the mask display with the "Mask" checkbox.
2. depending on your personal taste, you can view the pressure images with different contrast levels. The higher the contrast level, the fewer colors are used. The following table shows the number of colors for each contrast level:
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| Contrast Levels |
3. Click on the landscape icon to export the pressure image as a JPEG file, e.g. to include it in a documentation.