Tune Komm Vor Plus saddle Schwarzes Stuck seatpost review
The mad scientists at Tune make some of the most insanely light bike parts money can buy. I recently embraced total weight weeniness with a suite of their parts: a Komm Vor Plus saddle, Schwarzes Stuck seatpost, and two Wassertrager Uni bottle cages. What are they like? Staggeringly good.
Words & Images - James Raison
Tune are a legendary among carbon-worshipping weight weenies. The company was founded in 1989 after Munich-based Uli Fahl decided his bike was too heavy. So he took matters into his own hands. First he made bearings, then quick releases, and aluminium screws. Over the years Tune's range expanded and today it includes wheels, saddles, hubs, bottle cages, seat posts, and much more.
One thing has remained through all the years: a commitment to lightness. Ridiculous lightness.
THE PARTS
My bike is now adorned with the incomprehensibly German-named Komm Vor Plus saddle, Schwarzes Stuck seatpost, and Wassertrager Uni bottle cages.
The Komm Vor Plus saddle is outrageously basic. It’s a plank of 130mm wide carbon on top 8x9mm ovalised carbon rails, with a tiny strip of artificial leather to stop your butt from sliding off the back. Weight? 79 grams. Just let that sink in a moment. Unsurprisingly there is a rider weight limit of 90kg.
Carbon and imitation leather are all you get with the Komm Vor Plus.
Let’s cut to the chase, this saddle is shockingly comfortable. How is that possible? Simple: flex. The thin carbon you perch on acts like suspension and dampens even big bumps. It’s glossy coating causes causes no friction with your knicks, so you’ll naturally slide into the most comfortable spot without thinking about it. A long profile gives have plenty of spots to sit depending on what you’re doing. Climbing is best done parked on the wide rear of the saddle where you can comfortable push out the watts. Aggressive efforts with hands on the drops will find you sliding forward, where the narrow nose lets you mash the pedals.
The shape of the saddle meant I sat much further back than with the Fizik Arione it replaced. To maintain my position I switched to an inline seatpost. Thankfully, Tune have me covered for that too.
The Schwarzes Stuck seatpost has a carbon tube, aluminium 7075 clamp, and titanium screws. It’s ridiculously light as well, at just over 100 grams. It’s inline profile and exposed screws make adjusting the seat very easy, but may be aesthetically unpalatable to some.
It’s difficult to quantify the effect the seatpost makes on the ride when the saddle already changed it so radically. One thing I can quantify is this post is around 150g lighter than the Deda seatpost it replaced. That's a dramatic reduction.
The Wassertrager Uni bottle cages are excellent. At 19g apiece they’re also insanely light. Their carbon, mandible-style arms solidly hug your bottles and a small strip of rubber hold them in place. Every bottle I used slotted in and out nicely. How did they affect ride quality? They didn’t. These are pure indulgence. Sweet carbon indulgence.
Give your bottles a carbon hug.
INTOXICATING LIGHTNESS
Tune bike parts will corrupt you with their insane lightness. If you’ve invested in a 79g saddle, should you REALLY be carrying around that appendix?
My quartet of glossy new carbon parts are objectively awesome. The Komm-Vor Plus saddle is amazingly comfortable, the Schwarzes Stuck seatpost fat-shames almost every other seatpost, and the two Wassertrager Uni bidon holders are a gift for your bottles. So what’s the catch? Mostly it’s the expense. The Komm-Vor is $369, Schwarzes Stuck is $469, and each Wassertrager is $99. That's a lot of cash, even for the money-hungry cycling world. But you need to keep in mind what you're buying: exceptionally high quality hand-made German parts that are unlikely to ever need upgrading. How much better can bike parts possibly get?
