Originally Posted by
Russ Roth
You're not the first person to say this, but I still haven't understood what is so miraculous about this. Everyone seems to point to the seat being in the way but I've never found my seat to be in the way. Last fri I rode with a group, we did 10 miles of flowing singletrack with plenty of jumps, drops, and downhill in just over an hour and I didn't once have a moment in which I thought my seat was in the way.
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This may be a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know”. It is not in your way because you have learned to stay out of its way, so you’ve never learned to take advantage of a low saddle.
It requires a different riding technique and mindset to learn.. but the advantages of getting your weight low - rather than getting it back - is a game changer in bike handling. But this will never happen with the seat all the way up.
So the reason it is in some people’s way and not yours is that they have learned and experienced the benefits of better body positioning, but you still have not.
Look at how DH and Enduro riders are positioned on their bikes, and it becomes obvious why they have always ridden with their saddles dropped.
Also, the steep seat tube angles of modern geo bikes would have been mostly a non-starter without droppers. The first thing I noticed after getting a dropper 16 years ago was that I could run my saddle farther forward.