vinuneuro

How many cm saddle to bar drop in your gravel setup?

Koyote

About 2cm.

But this is highly personal, right? Different riders want and need different things. I am in my fifties and have a neck that was screwed up in a car wreck, so less drop works for me. You might ride better (faster, more comfortably, whatever) with less drop...Or with more drop.

RayLee

3 and a half inch from seat top to top of bar were the hoods mount... wish it had less drop, but Im more leg than arm/torso so stack hight is always a challenge.. already running a stem with some rise and even bars with rise (Specialized Hover Adventure bars)

If I rode steeper and more rocky roads/trails on it I would need less drop.. on pavement and fairly smooth fire road its good.

The drop is going to vary on body type/flexibility and depend on the type of terrain you ride... I have seen guys way faster than me on both fairly level bars and drops so low they look like velodrome bikes to me.

mack_turtle

Unpopular theory:
Saddle to bar dropis irrelevant in the face of effective stack and effective reach.

Your saddle should be where it needs to be for your legs, KOPS be damned. Your hand position relative to your bottom bracket is a far better way to judge how your bike handles.

kuroba

None. If anything, I think my bars are a little higher than my saddle.

Koyote

I'm not a bike fit expert and have only a vague sense of what "stack" and "reach" refer to...But I do agree with the sentiment. KOPS does not work for me -- I prefer my knees several cm behind the pedal spindles, and have ridden for years in that position - as much as 200 miles per day.

vinuneuro

Of course. There have been a few such threads in the Road forum, but I was curious to see how people had their fit set up for Gravel in comparison.

I am around 2cm as well.

Stack/reach are useful when comparing frame geometries of different bikes. And agree that saddle position is absolute. But when judging your fit on the bike, your reference is off where you are sitting. Once saddle position is determined, one has a range of options to position the upper body with the stem and bars relative to the saddle.

mack_turtle

I am not talking merely about frame stack and reach, but effective stack and reach of the whole bike. that is, where your hands end up, relative to the BB, when the bike is built up. basically, stack and reach + stem and handlbar dimensions. there are multiple positions that you can acheive that will be comfortable to sit and pedal in a static position that can be described in terms of cockpit length and saddle-bar drop. unless we're talking about a stationary exercise bike, this information is only partially useful.

if you steer, accelerate, stand up, sprint, ride over any sort of rough terrain, etc, the effective stack and reach, as I described it above, will tell you more about how confidently the bike handles under you. once you stand up on the bike, saddle-bar drop goes out the window from one bike to the next because BB drop, head tube angle, and such vary from one bike to the next.

cobra_kai

I haven't measured exactly but it's about 4 cm. On my road bike I have about 8 cm so it's a decent amount higher than that.


Re: KOPS, I think most people think of it as a starting point which is then tweaked to the rider preference and comfort. I've tried both forward and behind KOPS and have been most comfortable about a cm in front of it. I had some IT band issues with the saddle behind KOPS.

mack_turtle

Good point. This thread is like asking "what size shoe do you wear?"

shoota 

Agreed. With everything above.

79pmooney

Almost 9. A little low for gravel, but I've got to get there as well.

Ben

Seattle Forrest

My gravel bike is my road bike. I don't see them as different things, more like different ends of a spectrum from smooth and fresh tarmac through chipseal to gravel.

shoota 

I like your style. #Roadie4Life

HTupolev

Looks to be around 11cm drop from saddle nose to center of clamp.

That means little by itself, though. Saddle-to-handlebar reach, handlebar style, location and type of things mounted on the handlebar, rider physiology, and rider's preferences for holding the handlebars all affect the implications of a given drop value.

thehammerdog

Explain?
How is it not relevant

HTupolev

It's not irrelevant, but if it's all you have to go on, it doesn't tell you much.

BluesDawg

My bar tops are about a 1/4 inch higher than my saddle top on my road bike and on my gravel bike. With my very inflexible neck, that measurement is very important because I like being able to see what is up the road ahead of me and not just what is a couple of feet beyond my front wheel. It is actually my saddle to brake hoods distance that I change for gravel with my gravel bike about an inch shorter.

When I look at the geometry chart of a new bike, stack and reach are the first numbers I look at to get an idea how much I'll need to work with handlebar reach and stem angle and length and spacers to achieve the position I want.

mack_turtle

this might be my favorite thing on the internet ever- Stack and reach calculator

tyCycler

I have a road and gravel bike with almost the same geometry measurements, but one thing I did not take into account when choosing the gravel frame size was the shortened 'effective' reach on the bars from where the SRAM brake levers are positioned relative to my road bike Shimano setup. The SRAM setup on the Diverge bars are at least 1.5 inches closer to the head tube vs the Trek Shimano setup.

Point being that when you compare reach and stack when purchasing a new bike, it does not account for hood position on the bars for a given bike.

A stem change could resolve and match the reach of the trek, but I'm actually ok with where I ended up in the stock configuration, but it was another point of measurement I did not take into account and unless I'm missing something, is not published on any of the bike sites geometry info I've seen; that is the distance from head tube to 'hands on the hoods' position.

shoota 

Stem length has nothing to do with stack and reach. Neither does the reach of the handlebars, something a lot of people don't take into account. Not all bars have the same reach and that matters.

tyCycler

Yep, that is exactly my point.

shoota 

Roger that!

chas58

Hmmm, I'm not understanding your point.

For me, I look at:
1) saddle height (not important with a frame, as it is highly adjustable)
2) Cockpit length (stem plus top tube)
3) handlebar to stem drop.

Those 3 things tell me how I fit the bike (the 3 touch points, and angle of lean). Nothing else really matters, does it?


Saddle to bar drop is critical for me. Stack (handlebar) is adjustable - but for a specific bike - will it adjust to a range that gives me the saddle-handlebar drop I need? (e.g. the lean angle I want?)

thehammerdog

My good man that is not even a fair comparison ignore the wacked out now illegal position. It does matter!