HIGH-TECH TO OBSOLETE

So, what is "RAL" anyway?

The name comes from the initials of our motto, RIDEALIVE.
If you think of it as a label for "the gear we actually want for ourselves," made by Circles staff so we can play as hard as we can, you're pretty much right.

We take rules and common sense, knowledge and experience, chew them over with a sense of humor, and use them to the hilt.
RAL isn't a brand for competing on specs.
If anything, it might be more like a device for testing "how richly you can use up your life."

And now a new saddle has arrived from RAL.
The keyword this time is HIGH-TECH TO OBSOLETE.
From high-tech to out of date.

To be honest, the person in charge of developing this saddle is a bit of a maniac.

He has bought and used more than 15 saddles of the same style in his life. Count the ones that went through the business, and there are probably more.

His room used to have spares stacked high like Gunpla model kits, and he couldn't settle down unless his backside was on that curve.
You could fairly call it an addiction.

Why did it drive him so crazy?

I think it's because the cycling world once had its own "geniuses who were almost too smart."
More than 30 years ago, using nothing but ideas, simple materials and shape, they worked out a "right answer" that today's high-tech crowd couldn't beat even if they all teamed up.

It would be tacky to name names, but there's even a legend that racers at the very top of the world kept using it, ignoring their sponsor contracts and even blacking out the logo.

Built with knowledge and experience in hand, by analyzing the rotational motion of pedaling, it's what you might call "a formula for your backside."
For him, it wasn't just a part. It was one of the few "answers" of its era that he could believe in completely.

Today's market is like the space program.
Carbon, 3D printing, cutout structures, short noses, etc...
How long will our backsides keep paying tithes to the religion called "efficiency" and "light weight"?

What RAL wants to blow away is, in a sense, a counter to that dead-serious theory of evolution.

In other words, this is probably
a strategic, wrong-way project.

Inside is that "thoroughly calculated intelligence"
an addict swore he'd never let go of.
Outside, as you can see, is the poppiest coloring imaginable.

It's about time we said goodbye to the era of all black and all silver.
Properly thought through, yet somehow goofy-looking.
But that's what's good about it. That's just how it should be.
That's the RAL H2O.

RAL H2O Saddle

Colors: Black&Red, Red&Black, Yellow&Blue, White&Red
Size: Width 154mm, Length 277mm
Rail material: Cromoly
Cover material: Synthetic Leather
Padding: Light Foam
Weight: 355g
Price: ¥6,380

If some bike freak slapped this saddle onto the latest carbon bike
and laughed, "Oh, this? It's obsolete,"
we'd probably be pretty thrilled.

The price of one commuter-grade tire.
Or a few fancy lunches.
Being able to get that "golden balance" for a price like that is like a dream.

In an age where paying tens of thousands of yen for a single saddle, because it's carbon or 3D printed, has become the norm, surely your backside doesn't actually want to sit on a wad of cash.

Coating deep, intelligent thought in a poppy sense of oddness and wanting to blow society away. Knowing all about the latest technology and choosing, on purpose, to ride this "obsolete right answer."

In that moment, your bike stops being just a way to get around.
It becomes a slightly twisted, slightly freer, and seriously cool counterpunch.

Sit on it and you'll understand.
Actually, what we really hope is that it gets you on gut feeling before you even sit down.

RIDEALIVE.

This feel we love so much, as the standard from here on:
please give it a try.