Seat Angle
 

Interested to see what other people's preferred angle is for seats, I used to have mine very slightly nose up but read about it potentially applying pressure to the perineum and whilst not experiencing any problems have since had it flat or very slightly nose down.

I think I still prefer it very slightly nose up but just interested to hear others thoughts on this although I'm also guessing it'll partly depend on MTB vs Road Racer.

Check out the angles.

https://www.bikeforums.net/long-dist...bicycle-s.html

For me personally, it's a slight nose-down position that I've settled on. Pretty much just a trial and error approach got me where I am.

I do find that with nose up, on steep climbs, I have on occasion felt the sliding back sensation.

Seats are designed, AFAIK, to be set as close to level as possible. That's always going to be the most comfortable setting, because you're neither sliding forward nor sliding back. When a saddle is doing its job properly, you don't even know its there.

Even if level "feels" slightly off at first, that's the saddle's most neutral setting, and the one that will cause the least problems over thousands of miles of aches, pains, heat, cold, good days, bad days, and constantly varying conditions.

It can depend on the saddle. My leather saddles are adjusted slightly different that my old plastic ones were.
If, when riding, you feel too much pressure on anything other than your sit bones, you need to adjust it.

It depends heavily on the structure, padding etc of the saddle. My current one looks very nose-up, but it has to be like that or I slide forwards. The mid and nose are heavily padded, as well as the rear.

It depends on
1- The saddle.
2- The application: Road/gravel, MTB, or town cruiser?
3- How you are measuring “level”? Which part of the saddle?

Put a level on top of the saddle, running the full length. Leather saddles may well be the outlier here, I don't use 'em.

/\ this

Specialized Power Expert saddle. Slightly nose down. Nose up equals numb junk.

Nose down equals numb hands. And ass skin abrasions from pushing yourself back on the seat 10,000 times per hundred miles.

recently re-adjusted my saddle angle. the Brooks B17 on the road bike likes to be a tad nose up, but not so much that anyone would notice looking at it. probably if I put a level across from the nose to the rear high spot, it would be level

before
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5b07893931.jpg

after
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...441a85ab08.jpg

just found a pic of the same addle on it;s 1st ride (8/8/11)

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4de778afd8.jpg

FWIW, the only “wrong” answer here is one where you think you have any idea what works for anyone but yourself.

^^ "Interested to see what other people's preferred angle is for seats" means the answers we give are, in fact, not wrong (assuming we're not deceitful shills for Big Saddle).

I thought keeping your saddle perfectly level was "settled science". Apparently not. You learn (or un-learn) something new every day. :)

+1 more

All non-leather saddles = level. This is because I have no desire to slide forward and constantly push my body back onto the saddle thru a ride, and also because I have no desire to go numb in all the wrong places.
Leather saddles = nose up. This is because it is a different style of saddle with a high tail and a hammock effect due to flex keeps the rider in an effectively level position when the nose is up.

But hey- we are all designed slightly different and so i could see a 1degree angle up or down makes sense for some. When a saddle is tilted forward 20 degrees, i always wonder how that can be comfortable, but figure the person with huge forearms is the bike's owner.

I've come to use slightly nose down on all my saddles. Seems to work well for me.

Well, if you experience no perineum pressure, and the seat is comfortable to you at that angle, it is okay.

Depends on the saddle, and the person.

Sightly nose-up or me. Level is not bad, if the perfect adjustment is 'between notches' on my seatpost. Nose-down results in too much pressure on my hands so I avoid it.

I only posted this mainly just out of curiosity and to see if there was a heavy preference one way or the other but there have been a couple of posts about pressure on hands and I have been suffering with some aching wrists recently so really glad I did and at least I can experiment and see if I notice any difference by going flat or very slightly nose up.

Mine are pretty much horizontal with no angle.

Horizontal with no angle. Tried nose up, nose down, issues either way. Settled on horizontal no angle.

I've got ~200,000 miles with the nose down. When should I expect to start seeing these issues?

Edit: Any new setup gets its early rides with the wrenches for the seatpost and clamp in my pocket. I love 2-bolt seatposts where you can dial in the the tilt exactly out on the road.

Ben