Freestyle saddle without handle - for what? I’m curious to know what kind of tricks people buy seats without handles for?
One of the reasons is, that in performances, freestyle riders often wear dresses. A handle on the seat makes the dress bulge as if the rider had a raging errection (and on a more practical issue, it also gets caught on the dress in transitions easily).
A handleless seat is also easier to pull out for seat in back, especially if you ride a very high seat and short cranks. On a few other tricks (even including unispins) a more compact seat is an advantage as well. It’s only when you do a lot of seat in hopping, or riding longer distances and resting your hands on the handle that I find the plastic handle really an advantage.
However, I think for many it’s simply what they are used to, handleless seats were standard on freestyle unicycles for a long time. For most freestyle tricks, you can grip a handleless saddle pretty much just as well as the plastic handle, so there isn’t much reason to switch. I personally don’t find it a big adjustments, but there is a difference if you have a handle or not for some transitions like standing up into standup gliding.
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