No need to get anything special made, just to experiment.
Since this has come up a couple of times, I thought I would pass along a link to these:
Folks wanting to play with drop bar style grips ought to be able to put these right on the T-bar.
Thanks ubernerd, that’s just the sort of attachment I’m looking for.
I look forward to seeing what they look like on your uni and hearing how you like 'em.
I agree keep adjusting. When I set my Zero up for the first time I knew this was the best saddle ever even though I was sore within minutes. I kept trying different things and now it’s perfect! My only complaint is I have small tear in saddle cover in front of the adjustment hole and hate to be without the saddle to return it!
seats
I want to make a brooks suspended leather unicycle saddle, so i can say mine molds to my ass bones better. Why hasn’t brooks cashed in on unicycle seats yet
Today, during my ride, I noticed a strange advantage to the Zero. For some reason, I used to feel unstable leaning on the aero bars while I was going up hill. Not anymore! While going up a 5-10% grade, I was finally able to lean on my aero bars comfortably. This lean, of course, forces me to pedal faster.
I find that I’m still in the break-in period with this saddle, though. Today was my longest ride with the Zero installed, with just under 14 miles. The one thing that I haven’t figured out how to do yet is to adjust my position on the fly. What I mean is, on the KH street and other curved saddles, I was able to reposition myself to the front of the saddle if or when I started to feel a little sore. That being said, though, I did notice that my soreness/numbness seemed to go away towards the end of my ride. I did get off to rest my tush for a minute or two, which helped a lot.
On my next ride, I’m going to try and use some bicycle padded shorts.
And here is my take on the Fusion Zero.
I got mine a couple of weeks ago, but wasn’t able to use it until today. So last night I sawed a couple of inches off the seat post and installed it on my KH29". I don’t know if the post is slightly bigger but it didn’t slide into the frame that easily. I adjusted the height, and the angle: I went for the second position – first position being with the nose pointing all the way up. Sat on the uni on the landing in front of my flat. Gosh, that thing is hard!
Went for a ride this afternoon with it. It was a first for me in many ways. Since I’m car-less for a month, I didn’t take the KH to the woods next to my place. Instead, I rode in town. The seat is firm, but it took me not too long to figure out the position on it – partly thanks to the previous feedback I read here: really sit on your sitbones, not evenly distributed like on a banana shaped saddle. Once I got that right, it became more confortable, and after all my bike has a Brooks saddle, so my bum knows about firm saddles…
The first thing I noticed is how slim the saddle is. Almost no rubbing on the upper parts of my inner thighs. My skin is a bit fragile and each time I go for a long ride, I put some Chamois cream before the ride otherwise I come back almost bleeding. Today, I didn’t put any cream and after 16km, my thigh were only beginning to hurt – and that’s my longest ride to date!
The side effect of the slimmer saddle, and I wasn’t expecting it, is the slight loss of control. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the best unicyclist around. But I noticed that with the Zero, it was better to always have a hand on the handle to keep the uni straight. I can see why this saddle probably makes a good combo with a handlebar. But the nice thing that I wasn’t expecting was that it improved my riding a fair bit. Some might have read the thread where I realized how muni has affected my riding as I learnt to ride with more weight on the pedals than I should. I always force myself to be in the saddle when the road/trail is not bumpy, but I haven’t nailed the right position. That saddle helped me a lot because it’s easy to feel when your weight is evenly set on your sit bones. Happy with the saddle just for that reason!
After about 8km – which is when I usually start to get a bit tired and my riding drops a bit – I felt I had too much pressure on the front. I found it hard to be on the sit bones. So I stopped and got the allen key out, and put the saddle on position 1, with the nose all the way up. As soon as I got back on the uni, I realized how it forced me to sit on the back – therefore on the sit bones – and it helped. But the saddle is so steep then that I felt like I was going to fall off the back, something I never felt on a uni before. After some miles, that feeling faded a bit and I kept it for the rest of the ride. Would be nice to be able to have a seat angle between those two, that would probably be my favorite. I’m going to ride again tomorrow – if the weather allows – and will try it in the 3rd position too, almost horizontal. I have a feeling that the more horizontal settings are only interesting with a handlebar, which I don’t have (yet?).
One more nice thing is the cutout on the saddle is much deeper than on my other saddles, and it helped a lot because there is usually another part of my anatomy which gets a bit hurt from riding… and it was not rubbing anything with the Zero… 
The firm foam is ok on road riding, but that first experiment makes me wonder how it would be on the muni. I went through a old paved street, with big cobbles, and the uni started (and me) bouncing around a lot. That made it very uncomfortable, and I almost lost its control. Ok, if it was a muni trail, my tire pressure would have been lower. But that made me think that the thick foam of the Fusion Freeride is probably nicer for muni. To be tested.
The other thing that would worry me with muni is the protection at the back. I had one UPD today, going slow and not seeing that the sidewalk had a bump from a tree root. I was almost still when it happened and the back of the saddle rubbed on the tarmac and got a little scratch. It’s only cosmetic, but at higher speed it would probably damage the stitching, and a few UPDs would tear it for sure. Don’t know if the little “chrome bumpers” like on the old fashion circus unis are available. There might be a need for saddle protection.
Back home tonight, I swapped the muni tire for the Big Apple. Can’t wait to try that setup tomorrow!
That’s the saddle enjoying the Paris streets in position #1:
I wanted to share my experience with the KH Fusion Zero in case it is useful to anyone else. I first tried flattened saddles a year a few months ago. After one ride I was sold on the benefits for muni and road rides. I did find that coasting was more challenging. Not too long after that I got obsessed with freewheel unicycling and except for unicycle basketball haven’t spent much time on fixed wheel unicycles during the past twelve months. When Kris made the announcement of the Fusion Zero I started riding my flat saddles on my freewheel unicycles. It took a little adjustment but it helped on my biggest issue which is chafing. I got my KH Fusion Zero saddle yesterday and rode for about an hour on sidewalks near my house. Today I went on a small ride (6 miles or so) and practiced coasting through turns and coasting over rollers. Overall I found riding it was pretty close to riding a flattened saddle. The main difference is that the middle section is narrower. For me this has the benefit that there’s no rubbing of my legs on that part at all. In conjunction with the post attachment being slightly pushed back it also makes it easier to hold the saddle and push it along, a big benefit for me. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was still able to get a good grip on the saddle with my legs when standing up on the pedals. It hadn’t really crossed my mind before but I think it could work for basketball and I’m going to try it out for that next week. One huge benefit of the saddle is the attachment mechanism. While it requires a different kind of seatpost it’s much easier to transfer between unicycles without readjusting so there’s less of a need for multiple saddles. I don’t ride with an extra handle and my kind of riding is not as susceptible to soreness because I spend a lot of time off the saddle when I’m coasting so my experience may not be common to many other people. I’m planning to go on a longer ride tomorrow.
Has anyone noticed increased leverage when pulling up or pushing down on the saddle because of the lower handle position?
Question for Kris regarding the material of the base?
Update
I’ve been riding with no padding until today. This morning, I did about an 11 mile ride with cycling shorts. What a difference the padding made! No soreness at all!
I still have a concern with this saddle that I will eventually have to contend with and that is the flex in the saddle when I place weight on my aero bars. It really doesn’t bother me while riding; however, I’m worried that I might end up breaking the saddle. Maybe Kris could chime in on this question. What’s in the base of the saddle that is not in the base of the KH Fusion Street where the saddle reinforcement plate is required? Has anyone found a way to attach the T-bar to the seat post so that it could take the weight and not flex the saddle to the point of concern? It would have to be an adjustable attachment similar to the attachment to the underside of the saddle.
Second ride today. Put the saddle back to position #2. As soon as I got on it, it hurt somewhere new. Behind my b…s to be precise. Strange as I felt like i wasn’t seating on them yesterday. Tried to force myself to sit at the back, but the discomfort made me put less weight on the saddle, therefore riding less well.
I stopped, went for position #1 (nose all the way) and it wasn’t better.
So I tried position #3, with the saddle almost flat. Felt weird, almost as if I was going to fall off the front. Kept it for a bit then went back to position #2 for the rest of the ride. I did about 12km in town but never felt really confortable.
When I got almost home, I did some experiment. Put saddle in position #1 for a bit but it wasn’t better. Then tried #3 for a bit, which was kind of ok if I pushed on the handle at the same time - which would force my weight to be more on the back of the saddle. Went back home feeling better, but a bit sorry that it wasn’t as good as yesterday.
I’ll have to try again. I’m more and more convinced that this saddle works better with a handlebar. But at the same time, I’m sure it takes some time to adjust to that saddle which has good potential.
Had another UPD, the stitching at the rear of the saddle didn’t like it. I’m going to think about some kind of bumper extension that would prevent that.
Got my Zero installed today. I’ve got early impressions, but I’ll try to get some miles on it before I post opinions.
The Fusion Street and the other curved bases are constructed from Polypropylene plastic with a thin steel plate reinforcement sandwiched between the frame and the foam. Polypropylene (PP) is by far the most common material in bike saddle bases.
In contrast, the F Zero is constructed entirely from fibre-reinforced Nylon 12 composite material, which is a common choice for high-end bike saddles. This material is about twice as expensive as polypropylene but much tougher. Stiffness is controlled by the percentage of fibre: higher percentage = stiffer. This allows tuning of the saddle stiffness and the Zero has a higher fibre reinforcement proportion than a bike saddle would. Beyond a certain limit, excess fibre equals stiffness to the point of being brittle. In this first release of the saddle (through the next year) I took the fibre percentage to the limit of what I was confident was not going to be brittle, based on rider testing with the regular front handle and the T-bar. I have samples coming with a higher fibre content, but don’t expect to change production until I’m confident in it.
An advantage of of fibre-reinforced Nylon composite is good resistance to repeated flexing without failure; hence why it is a preferred choice for bike saddles. The saddle was not tested with aerobars so I can’t offer an opinion on that.
Kris
Well, I guess I’ll be the guinea pig, then. In the meantime, I’m going to look into making a seat post attachment for the T-Bar. I know Terry made one awhile back, I wonder how that is working for him.
I had my first ride with the Zero today. Short XC ride with my 26 guni with a T bar, won’t comment on comfort as that would be too early. Coming from a Fusion Freeride with a carbon fiber base, the flex was problematic though. It would be great if in the future a version of the Zero with a CF base would be available. Or atleast a separate 3rd party CF base like the UDC or Axel base for the standard saddles.
Right now I am thinking whether it’s possible to attach the end of the T bar tube to the seat post to reduce the flex. Has anyone done this or something similar?
I found it easiest to modify the Shadow base and eliminate all flex. In the drop Areos its perfect! The Shadow base is to long for the Zero, but by bending the two attachment plates inwards about an 1/8" it was perfect.
My “auxilliary” T handle support works great. There would be no way to maintain enough support without it, with aerobars attached. There was just way too much length and added weight to be held up by the under-seat brackets alone. This is the modification tutorial.
Did you try sliding the seat post into the frame before you “sawed” it? Did it fit “new”? If so, and it didn’t fit after you sawed it, you might consider ditching the pipe cutter (assuming that is what you were using) and cutting it with a hacksaw that does not leave a bead (frisbee golf term) on the end. Ken had one seize up in his and had a heck of a time with it. Just a suggestion.
Shadow Handle Base removes saddle flex from equation making it the superior choice for Aero bars.
The problem I see with this is that I prefer to have my aero bars angled upward quite a bit. I’m wondering, though, how easy would it be to bend the Shadow handle to my preferred angle. Expensive and heavy fix, though. Although, albeit a clean look. Hmm…I’ll have to give this one some thought. Thanks for the idea.
Thanks for the suggestions to reduce flex! Terry, does your adapter help when you pull on the T bar or only when pushing down? In any case it’s good to know that it’s possible to use a Shadow handle base if nothing else works out (would be more expensive than the saddle itself!).