BikeYoke has created a new way to think about cockpit geometry, and its already great saddle gets even better.

In the spectrum of newsworthy mountain bike gear, new handlebars and saddles rarely see much in the way of substantive change or improvement. Best case, they do their job, you ride your bike, and you don’t really think about them.

But BikeYoke’s Stefan “Sacki” Sack is not good at just riding his bike and ignoring the details of its parts. So along with the headline “BikeYoke is making bars and a 3D manufactured version of their Sagma saddle now” there’s also a deeper story on how we think about cockpit geometry, and how Sacki wants to simplify that equation with common sense standards.

BikeYoke Sagma 3D Overview

• Widths: 130 mm, 142 mm
• Versions: Lite and Regular
• Rails: Carbon or Aluminum
• Weight: 257 g (Regular, 142 mm, Carbon), 218 g (Lite, 142 mm, Carbon)
• Price: $159-$249

BikeYoke Barmate Overview

• Diameter: 35 mm
• Stack: 50, 65 mm
• Options: Carbon or Aluminum
• Reach: - 35 mm
• Upsweep/Backsweep: 6/9°
• Weight: 259 g (Carbon, 65 mm), 321 g (Aluminum, 65 mm)
• Price: $89 (Aluminum), $270 (Carbon)

Sagma 3D Saddle Update

Of these two products, the fancy, space-age 3D-printed saddle is actually the simplest, and easiest to explain, so we’ll start there. The Sagma 3D uses density-optimized 3D printing to make the saddle denser and more supportive in high-load areas, and softer and more comfortable in low-load areas.

I’m a huge fan of the original Sagma. Its shape and profile work really well for my rear end, and anecdotally, it seems to be one of the more “universal” saddles out there—most folks who try it seem to get along with it well, regardless of how different their usual preference in saddles might be.

Just like the original Sagma, the new Sagma 3D is available in two builds, one with BikeYoke’s adjustable shock absorber system, and a Lite version with traditional rails. Beyond that, you also have the choice between carbon and aluminum rails, as well as the ability to swap out a branded tab on the saddle for different color accents.

Sagma 3D Performance

The original Sagma is my favorite saddle of all time by a large margin. I run the Lite version on full suspension bikes and the regular suspended version on gravel bikes and hardtails. It’s a comfortable, durable saddle that just gets the job done. I’ve gone through a lot of frustration with other saddles in the past, and the Sagma is the only one that’s made me so content that I’m no longer casting sidelong glances as new options are released.

The new 3D-printed versions kick that comfort up a notch. No hot spots, no rubbing, just support where I need it. I also quite like the slightly tacky interface between the saddle and my shorts. It’s not sticky enough to make repositioning myself on the bike hard, but it does keep me from sliding around at all.

Price wise, these are not cheap saddles, but they do compare quite favourably to other 3D-printed options. A Specialized S-Works Power Mirror saddle costs $449 compared to $199 for a Sagma 3D lite with carbon rails.

If you’re on the hunt for a new saddle, you should try a regular BikeYoke Sagma Lite. If you get along with the Sagma Lite, and want to upgrade that performance even more, the Sagma 3D is your ticket.

BikeYoke Barmate Features

On the surface, this is a pretty simple handlebar release. You can get a Barmate in either Carbon or Aluminum builds, and it’s got a squashed midsection to increase compliance. The Barmate also has titanium mesh reinforcements where the stem and controls clam down to distribute those clamping forces.

BikeYoke says the Barmate is the most compliant and comfortable 35-millimeter handlebar on the market, without compromising on steering precision. Compliance is a big handlebar buzzword, so it’s no surprise that BikeYoke put a bunch of effort into eliminating any harshness.

But, when you get into the geometry of the Barmate, things start to look a little different. BikeYoke doesn’t list the “rise” of these bars, they list the “stack.” Similarly, in addition to the up and backsweep numbers, there’s a “reach” dimension listed as well. That’s because BikeYoke wants us to rethink the relationship between our bikes’ geometry and its cockpit. We’ll dive into that in a moment, but first, for folks who just want to know how these bars ride, without all the nerdery, here are some performance impressions.

BikeYoke Barmate Performance

The relationship between 35-millimeter carbon handlebar stiffness and comfort has long been fraught. For bigger folks like myself, larger diameter bars deliver a noticeable upgrade in steering precision, especially when paired with 38-millimeter stanchion'd forks. But sometimes that precision can come with excess vibrations going straight to your hands. Plenty of brands have experimented with novel profiles and carbon layups to combat this, and BikeYoke is in good company here.

After a few rides on the Barmate carbon, it’s definitely nice and compliant. No harshness, no extra vibrations, no frustration. And no scary flexing or twisting either. The aluminum version feels remarkably similar to the carbon one, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t tell them apart in a blind test. So far, both versions feel comparable to the best compliant bars from other brands I’ve used. However, that comes with the caveat that it’s still spring and the trails are soft. Once I’ve taken some braking-bumped bike park laps I’ll update this piece if I have any new impressions.

How Should We Think About Cockpit Geometry?

Back to the nerdy stuff! When Sacki set out to make bars, he realized that the measurements for bar dimensions aren’t really standardized. Generally bars are listed with rise, upsweep, and backsweep dimensions. But that “rise” is often measured as the delta in height between the center of the bars, and the start of the upswept control section. And every brand starts that straight control section at a slightly different point along the bar, so the total rise can vary between manufacturers. As an example, I have a pair of 60-millimeter rise Spank bars that are much more than a centimeter taller than my 50-millimeter Title bars.

Those sorts of discrepancies mean rise numbers are pretty arbitrary. The position of your hands is a product of both the rise and the upsweep of your bars, and that position can be hard to calculate. Similarly, backsweep dimensions don’t specify where those bends are starting from, so bars with very similar numbers on paper can have very different feels in real life.

BikeYoke’s solution to this ambiguity is to apply traditional frame geometry philosophy to the cockpit. Instead of rise, BikeYoke measures stack - the vertical distance from the center of your bottom bracket to the center of the end of your bars. Similarly, while the brand lists backsweep, it’s also expressed as the net difference between the center of the clamped portion of the bars, and the center of the ends. That number corresponds to the net negative change in reach that your bars deliver.

In practice, this all ends up being pretty simple, if you want it to be. BikeYoke’s 50 millimeter stack bars put your hands in an equivalent place to most 15-25 millimeter “rise” bars on the market, and the 65 millimeter stack bars put them in an equivalent position to most 30-40 millimeter bars. These bars have pretty “normal” geometry compared to the rest of the market, so you’re fine to just set, forget, and ride your bike.

But, if you want to get complicated, BikeYoke would love to facilitate that. Sacki went deep down the rabbit hole of how head tube angle, head tube height, stem length, bar geometry, and spacer height interact. He put together a spreadsheet tool that allows you to calculate your effective reach and stack with real-world numbers from your bike setup. Why? Because it’s cool, obviously. But beyond that, it also makes it easier to understand why bikes might handle differently from one another, even with similar cockpit setups. It also makes it easier to get your hands in a similar position relative to the steering axis on all the bikes in your garage, without having to resort to a bunch of guesswork.

Folks are more likely to mess with their cockpit setup than any other geometry adjustment on their bike. But every change here affects every other aspect. Piling up spacers to increase stack decreases reach. Longer stems increase reach, but can also raise the bars up higher. It’s all connected, and those connections are hard to visualize. BikeYoke has put together a compelling framework to view those connections through.