speedlever

What is the current wisdom on adjusting the saddle? After hanging my road bike on the wall for 5+ years, I decided to start riding again. At one point in the interim, I loaned my bike to a friend for some visitors to ride for a day or so, and when I got it back, the height and fore/aft of the saddle were all reset.

I've looked online and see various methods with critiques trashing them and wonder if there's any good rule of thumb to follow these days.

Sojodave

Set the height of the saddle first: The three popular methods are...
1. Straighten your leg and place the heel on the back of the pedal while the pedal is at the bottom. That is the quick and dirty way.
2. Measure your cycling inseam by using force on your crouch and measure against a wall. Use that measurement x .883 and use this measurement from your bottom bracket to the saddle.(This is the Greg Lemond method)
3. Measure your cyling inseam, x it by 109% and subtract your crank length to get your saddle height from the middle of the bottom bracket.

Fore/Aft should start with KOPS which is knee over pedal spendal. Take a string and put a weight on the bottom. Hang it from your knee and see if the weight hangs by the axle of your pedal.

Tilt should start with trying to level the saddle. If you feel crouch pain, adjust it down a slightly. If your hands fall asleep, tilt it slightly up.

speedlever

Thanks. I tried versions 1 and 2 and got pretty widely varying results. I have adjusted the saddle nearly all the way aft and the KOPS system still has the weight well in front of the pedal axle (1.5 to 2 inches, I'd say). I have the saddle level for now.

My barefoot inseam measures 32.5 inches, so method 2 works out to about 28.6-28.7 inches which is nearly 1/2 inch lower than the heel method. My bike is 56cm and I believe is correctly sized for me. I think the lower saddle height will work better for me based on a short test ride.

But I'm not so sure about the fore/aft saddle position yet. That seems way out of whack from the methods I've seen (including KOPS).

fietsbob

Fore and aft is about the length of your femur .. and saddle setback.. effects the weight bias on or off your hands..


When my general fit is good my line of sight looking down is as if i see down thru the steering tube axis..






....

Jon T

BITD the "rule of thumb" (or should that be "rule of arm?) for saddle fore/aft was: elbow against nose of saddle, tip of longest finger (usually the middle one) to be at the center-line of the handlebar where it passes through the stem, or "goose neck" as we called them.
Jon

rumrunn6

trial & error

speedlever

Thanks guys. I'll head out on a ride later this morning and see how it feels. Some interesting RoTs here! But KOPS and the elbow trick all tell me to move my saddle about 1.5-2 inches aft! (and there's not that much adjustment left in the saddle). But it's aft of where I used to ride it, based on markings on the slide rails.

Brief test rides at its present location make me think I was riding with it too far forward in the past as the perceived weight on hands seems much reduced from what I recall. But 5+ years is a long time between rides.

Road Fan

One of the other ways to set up saddle fore/aft is a little more like yoga.

1. Set your saddle height using any method.
2. Learn to recognize what you are in a position when your weight is balanced front/rear.
3. Move your saddle forward or back so that the sit bones are supported by the widest part of the saddle.
4. Level the saddle and go ride. You should not have much hand pressure and there should be minimal pressure on the perineum.

There's more, but hey, it's yoga! This is usually a good stopping point. Remember to write down the dimensio

speedlever

How much hand pressure (on the brifters) should there be? I estimate about 10 lbs per hand. Is that too much or too little? Which way to move the saddle to reduce hand pressure?

Road Fan

I don't have a number, but when in my preferred hand position, I like to be able to lift my hands a little bit and raise my butt off the saddle when going over bumps, without seriously toppling forward or backward. It's seeking a balance point, but it's also core strength.

I move the saddle back to get to my balance, usually, but I have upper body weight.

speedlever

I get some tingling in my fingers, but it's hard to tell whether it's carpel tunnel or a hand pressure issue.

fietsbob

Saddle level? sloping down forces your effort to push yourself back..

speedlever

Yep, best I can tell with my 2ft level. I’ve had trouble for years with tingling hands/fingers, even when I rode motorcycles.

Road Fan

Reducing pressure can't be a bad start, but I'm not a doc!

Sojodave

For hand pressure, here are some things to try.
1. Move saddle back
2. Longer stem
3. Make sure you are resting your hands on the base of your palm and not in the middle
4. Move your position of your hands throughout the ride
5. Tilt the saddle slightly up
6. Make sure your reach is correct
7. Gel under your bar wrap helps
8. Giro Super Gel gloves

Leisesturm

You are doing all this measuring by yourself right? And you did not do any of them 3x with the results averaged (as is often recommended). I'm pretty sure of this. I know it feels dumb, but try to get a good (really good) friend to help you with the measuring so you can be in as natural a posture as possible. The cycling inseam is measured by taking a thinnish hardcover book and sliding it up past your junk so it is pressing firmly against your pubic bone. Then someone else measures from the floor to the top of the book. You are in your bare feet.

If you are not racing or planning to, all this measuring is really just to satisfy the inner geek. It isn't necessary. Get on the bike in your bare feet. Put your heels on the pedals. Sit naturally with one hand on something to support you. Pedal backwards. Adjust the seat to a height that allows you to do this smoothly. There. You just set your saddle to a height that allows you to ride the bicycle. No tape measures, no snickering 'friends', no math, no brainer. If you feel like you want to raise the seat a little after you have ridden it this way for at least 10 miles... go for it. Likewise lowering it. It's your bike. But if you find that you can put a foot down at stops without getting off the saddle, it is too low.

KOPS is impossible to measure by yourself. Don't even try. You get meaningless results (like 2" off). You assume the 56cm frame is sized properly why? Anyway, its not (really) important. Here is what I would do in your (cycling) shoes: 1. center the saddle over the seatpost (equal amounts of saddle rail on either side). 2. Put my elbow on the nose of the saddle and reach my fingers out towards the bar. I expect the tip of my longest finger to just reach the back edge of the handlebar. Add 1" if you are a real man, subtract 0.5" if you are a wuss. Kidding. Kind of. The differences can be made by moving the saddle back or forth, or by buying shorter or longer stems. Obviously one way costs money and the other doesn't cost anything. Your choice. Go out and ride. Give things a good month or two before deciding what to do next.

johngwheeler

Using KOPS for set-back is at best a starting point, but it's fraught with confusion about which part of the knee to measure against, and depends a lot on your particular leg bone lengths.

I've had better luck with the "balance" method mentioned here and on various bikes fitting web sites. Basically start with the saddle in the middle of rails or with KOPS if you prefer. From there I attempt to get to the point where I can "just about" lift my hands from the hoods while pedalling moderately hard, without tipping forward and sliding forward to the tip of the saddle. Move the saddle back until you have almost no weight on your hands at this level of effort. There should still be some weight of course, to provide control on the bars, but I couldn't tell you how much weight this actually is. An alternative to the hoods, is to try on the tops, but in this case you have zero weight on your hands and be able to cycle with just the finger tips on the hoods.

Another important aspect of comfort is wrist angle and choosing the correct weight bearing portion of your hand. It should be at the bottom of the hand near the wrist, in the same spot that supports your weight when doing a push up. Don't support your body weight with the web of your hand, which has lots of nerve endings that can lead to numb hands. Avoid "ulnar deviation", which is twisting your hands downward out of alignment with your wrists.

noglider 

For saddle height, many people find that if they put their arm pit over the saddle, the tip of the middle finger should reach the crank spindle. I have short legs (and long arms?) so I find the second joint of the middle finger reaches the crank spindle.

Leisesturm

I must try this one out...

speedlever

Yes, by myself. I did the inseam measurement using my 2 ft level. Worked fine.

I'm not racing, but hoping to optimize my saddle position for comfort, then performance so I don't lose anything unnecessarily. And yeah, I have a lot of inner geek to satisfy.

speedlever

This seems a bit trickier than it should be. But making minute adjustments and test riding is a tedious process! I think my current saddle position is pretty close, as moderate pedaling pretty much takes the weight off my hands. But I need to think about that ulnar deviation. And I have to consciously think about NOT locking my elbows with my hands on the hoods... which makes me think the fore/aft may be a bit aft.

Heh. I just tried this and found when I force my left arm straight, the finger print area of my longest finger (middle finger) reaches the crank spindle. Interesting method.

Road Fan

There are a lot of "rules of thumb" for saddle fore/aft. All of them at some time can look like no more than old folklore.

But you don't need all of them, just one that gets you started so you can get out and feel if the results are good for you.

Same goes for saddle height, though the calculations are easier and seem to be more related to the problem of pedaling. I'm pretty confident you'll find things you want to try differently after you do start doing your own optimizations. None of these rules and methods are definitive answers. We're all here just trying to help you get started, and maybe to learn something ourselves by seeing the discussion and seeing how it works out for you.

speedlever

Thanks all. This may be a never ending procedure.

Road Fan

Yes, and part of the reason is that your body's needs change as time goes on.

speedlever

After riding several hundred miles in the present position, I'm mostly happy. But I feel like there's more pressure on the web between my thumb and forefinger than there should be when I'm on the brifters. Is that likely a seat position issue or a stem length issue? Or something else?