Has anyone had success with running the Arione significantly nose up?
After trying seemingly every saddle in existence, I had settled on the Arione CX a couple years ago as the best for me.
It was never absolutely perfect, but close enough in most regards. I loved the long/flat surface (and miss it). It's nearly too narrow for me, though, and the major issue I had was risking going numb on rides over 40 miles unless I consciously worked at spending considerable time out of the saddle.
Fast forward: Seeing the newly revamped 2013 Flite a couple months ago, with a profile looking almost like the marriage of an Arione CX and classic Flite 1990, I pulled some strings and got one (with the cutout) early and can report quite positive feedback on the whole - but the overall fit is closer to an improved Antares IMO as the quicker downward sweep on the skirt is preferable to me.
Anyway, what brought me to this great thread was discovering that nose up by about 1.2 degrees helped the new Flite give me more effective flat seating area, more similar to the Arione. I started researching the who/what/why of running saddles nose up and landed here... After delving into this thread, I tossed the bike on the trainer, pulled off the single remaining spacer to slam the stem and tweaked height and set back. In all, I wound up pulling the saddle back another 1.5cm (from an already Eddy'ish stretch), raising it another 1cm and tilting the Flite nose up 1.2 degrees... amazingly, it felt absolutely great on the trainer. Indeed, as the thread title suggests, a revelation!
My first real test ride on the road confirmed it beyond question. In a word, outstanding! Much improved comfort, plus improved power transfer!
As others have attested to, it was shocking to me because it goes against so much conventional wisdom that's been pounded into us all about fit and saddle set up "rules".
Here's my problem, even with this outstanding "new" saddle fit, I'm now tempted to retest the Arione set up in this way!
Why, why, why?!
I'm probably not going to tempt fate just yet having found new nirvana, but a thousand miles down the road I just know one day I will - unless someone tells me how foolish it would be. That, if the Arione ran slightly nose down caused numb nuts, that only an idiot would attempt running it nose up and expect a better outcome...
Help, save me from myself!
Last edited by askmass; 01-28-13 at 05:59 AM.
Reason: nose up % typo correction