Review on Padded Gel Bike Seat Cover - Bikeroo Cushion For Peloton & Exercise: Adjustable For Men & Women'S Comfort On Stationary, Mountain & Road Bicycle Seats by James Daniels

I have a FitDesk Bike. After about 3,000 miles on it, (really), I noticed that the vinyl on the seat was wearing and cracking. I also noticed the skin on my butt was wearing and cracking. So, I started to look for a saddle cover.The specs say this cover is 10"wide by 11"long. The FitDesk seat is a classic "cruiser" seat. But, by the tape it is 10.5" wide and 11" front to back. I decided to take a chance. The cover fits the seat exactly front to back. It is just a touch short side to side, but the difference is negligible and doesn't effect comfort or installation.Installation is interesting. The specs say the cover is 1" thick. But, of course, the cruiser seat is 2" or 3". Well, that 1" is the thickness of the gel padding. The cloth cowl that goes over the side and under the seat is more like 4", so there is plenty of material to go over the sides of the seat and gather underneath.Here's a tricky part. There is a drawstring that you pull that gathers up the material under the seat and snugs it up. But there's a lot of play in that and if that were all there was it might not be enough to hold the cover on tightly. But, and this is important, there is a second strap. It does not appear in any of the product photos. It does appear in a number of customer photos. The strap is in two lengths. There is one on each side of the cover just at the curve where the narrow front piece widens out to go around the seat sides. If you pull these down and tie them together under the seat it holds the cover super tightly so that there is no give, flex or movement at all. That also serves to pull the cover in tightly at the curvey part of the seat.Here's another trick. Pull down and tie the straps with a simple overhand knot. Then take the straps around the back of the seat post and tie them together again. This guarantees the cover won't slip forward. Then, tie the drawstring strings with a simple overhand knot and pull them around the front of the seat post and tie them off. Now the cover won't slip backward.All of that said, is the cover good enough to be worth adding? Well, first, it certainly protects the original seat cover. It adds an inch to the machine height, but you can readjust the seat height if you need to. (I was between too high and too low, so this little bump in height was actually good for me.) The gel is comfy. The cover does make the seat feel a bit narrower than was originally the case. Remember, the cover is a bit narrower than the seat. Also, the cover slopes down a bit at the edges while the original seat is more of a cruiser wide ride. I think these two factors are what combine to make it all feel narrower.Along the same lines, the back of the cover is a bit high compared to the surface of the original seat, so you get a very little bit of a more tipped forward feel. Since it's basically an upright bike anyway that didn't matter much to me.The upshot is that the feel of the seat and ride does end up being a bit different. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.As to butt comfort, well everyone's built a bit differently. This seems to offer support at the right places; there aren't any chafing points, and if I do end up with some sore spots at least they'll be new and different sore spots. So far, though, it's working as hoped. I certainly didn't feel like buying a whole new seat, which is the ultimate way to go, and this certainly does feel like a good value upgrade.If anything changes after the cover has been in use for a longer while, I'll update this review.