Airlines to swap seats for bicycle saddles

In a bid to cram as many people as possible on board their planes, airlines may soon remove seats and place passengers on rows of bicycle saddles.

As described in a recent patent application by Airbus, passengers would sit on fold-down saddles, four of which would fit in the space occupied by three conventional economy class seats.

If the new seating configuration is introduced, a good choice of the saddle might be the Infinity.

The elegant, skeletal-looking design is the brainchild of Dr Vincent Marcel, a chiropractor and triathlete. While researching for the project, Marcel trawled patents on bicycle seats dating back to the dawn of cycling in the late nineteenth century and noticed that, barring a few creative departures, they had remained effectively the same.

A traditional bicycle seat places the rider’s weight onto the so-called ‘sit bones’ and pubic bones, causing pinching and discomfort, which in turn decreases performance and endurance.

The Infinity Seat might look like a saddle-shaped cookie cutter, but the seemingly uncomfortable design cleverly distributes the rider’s weight onto the body’s natural shock absorbers - the muscle mass of the buttocks.

Judging by the runaway success of the Infinity Seat on crowd-funding website, Kickstarter, expect it at your local bike shop sometime soon.

Air passengers who baulk at the prospect of sitting on a bicycle saddle for many hours on end, may be reassured by the positive reviews the Infinity seat has received from riders in the Race Across America (RAAM) - one of the most respected and longest running endurance races in the world. Riders complete 3,000 miles and climb over 170,000 feet in less than two weeks. The race is 30% longer than the Tour de France and cyclist have half the time to complete it.

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