The Inspiration Behind It All
The MoonSaddle inventor – Dennis Bell, a distant cousin of Alexander Graham Bell – experienced a problem – discomfort and numbness. While working as a consultant for a company in California, he needed some exercise, so he went to a yard sale and purchased a used bicycle. He rode his used bike to work and various beaches in the area.
Having had medical training as a navy corpsman, he understood the human anatomy. He envisioned how the body addresses a traditional bicycle seat. It reminded him of the old adage about “getting ridden out of town on a rail” – a not-so-comfortable experience for someone who disrupted a community’s peace.
He remembered that the human butt in general has two parts – the perineum (soft tissue lying between the anus and reproductive organs) and ischial tuberosities (sits bones). Traditional bike saddles put the weight on the perineum. By riding his bike while standing only on the pedals, the pain and numbness did not occur, so he knew the problem had to be the saddle.
On a Sunday afternoon, he envisioned a new saddle concept that puts the rider’s weight on the sit bones rather than the perineum. That vision created the MoonSaddle design – a saddle without a nose. It had horns, but they faced backward instead of to the front. His new saddle mainly contacted the sits bones, not the perineum. He took a piece of wood and carved out the first MoonSaddle.
He purchased an old leather football at another yard sale and used it as a skin for his new saddle. The texture of the football gave him the proper texture for his new saddle. Having considerable knowledge of polymeric systems (resins, epoxies, expanding polymers, etc.), he used the wood and leather pattern to make a mold. Thousands of MoonSaddles later, his patented design has stood the test of time.
New Ownership
MoonSaddle is owned and operated by New Light LLC. Nothing else has changed. Same great product, same great service.
Management Team Members
Dennis Bell
Member, New Light LLC
Inventor of Grid Defender®
60 plus US patents, over 45 in production to date
Founder and designer of MoonSaddle™ bicycle saddles
Founder of Bell and Carlson Gunstocks, Mentor, Bell & Whitten Gunstocks
Founder of Bell Design Corp.
Designer of total and state-of-the-art manufacturing systems
Veteran United States Navy
Broad education in areas of engineering and science
Recipient of the Alexander Graham Bell award Most Prolific Inventor
Adda Bell
Member, New Light LLC
University of Montana
Bilingual
Medical and Dental department management
Creative and artistic
Connoisseur of native gourmet cuisines
Full manufacturing knowledge for MoonSaddle