Are saddles too high on modern bikes?

[531colin]

Adjusting saddle height is about the easiest bike fit change we can do so a bit of experimentation should suffice to get a good comfortable position.

Also makes it easy to give your bike the fashionable "high saddle low bars look".

How is that getting a comfortable position - or am I missing something? In my book fit is everything - not fashion. I'll leave that to you

Judging by the number of people I see on the road rocking their hips and pointing their toes to reach the pedal at the bottom, there are a lot of people who don't share your perspective........is all I meant.

[rogerzilla]

I think one reason for incorrect saddle height is poor pedalling style. I see a lot of people with their knees stuck out like a scally on a BMX. Your knees should almost brush the top tube*. This affects saddle height because, when your knees are sticking out, you need the saddle lower.

*Moultoneers will know this makes the bottle bosses unusable, but Moultons were always more about form than function

[Cugel]

Personally I think people put bar and saddle heights at levels they are happy with. I don't think that's a new or old thing.

There's so much could be said about this observation ...... I know both from my own behaviour and that observed in others that what makes many humans "happy" is often very bad for them, for their interests, for their family and friends, for the rest of society, for the planet - and in fact isn't even making them happy, as all they're doing is scratching a mind-fashion itch and making it itchier. If only we could stop absorbing the programming of the mass media, eh?

As to saddle height, it's taken me a lifetime of slow and intermittent experiments to get it so that I'm "happy". All those sprurious "reasons" I followed in the past, from "both feet on ground" to "look like a Tour racer" were tried until I could admit my "happy" was somehow "unhappy". Even now, I find that changing circumstances, from getting a new pair of shorts to growing older, means I have to go a-searching-oh for "happy height" once more. Just yesterday I tried a 0.5cm drop and found it pleasing ..... so far.

Cugel

[Jdsk]

I think one reason for incorrect saddle height is poor pedalling style. I see a lot of people with their knees stuck out like a scally on a BMX.

Same observation, but I think that the causation is often the other way round. And sometimes related to "both feet on the ground".

Jonathan

[warey4life]

I notice a lot more how some people struggle up hills in a really high gear.

[Mick F]

I think one reason for incorrect saddle height is poor pedalling style. I see a lot of people with their knees stuck out like a scally on a BMX. Your knees should almost brush the top tube*. This affects saddle height because, when your knees are sticking out, you need the saddle lower.

*Moultoneers will know this makes the bottle bosses unusable, but Moultons were always more about form than function

Yep. Agree.
Brushing the top tube is good, and the bottle fitted on the seat tube of a Moulton takes some getting used to. I'm always conscious of it and can feel it as a I pedal along.

[JohnW]

^^^ me too,I'm always concerned about their knees,I saw a lady last week who looked comical the saddle was so low.
Another one is having the saddle set to far forward.

Is that because the seat-tube on 'modern' frames is too steep?
Does any one remember a thread - possibly a couple of years ago - where the writer had received a new custom-built-to-measure frame on which the seat-tube was so steep that he couldn't get his saddle far enough back? It seemed to me to be an awful situation and the frame-building company should have been taken severely to task. I can't remember the name of the original poster - or the title of the thread.

[Bmblbzzz]

I think one reason for incorrect saddle height is poor pedalling style. I see a lot of people with their knees stuck out like a scally on a BMX.

Same observation, but I think that the causation is often the other way round. And sometimes related to "both feet on the ground".

Jonathan

Yep. I think people are pedalling with knees out cos their saddles are too low, not having their saddles low so they can pedal with their knees out.

[rogerzilla]

I think one reason for incorrect saddle height is poor pedalling style. I see a lot of people with their knees stuck out like a scally on a BMX. Your knees should almost brush the top tube*. This affects saddle height because, when your knees are sticking out, you need the saddle lower.

*Moultoneers will know this makes the bottle bosses unusable, but Moultons were always more about form than function

Yep. Agree.
Brushing the top tube is good, and the bottle fitted on the seat tube of a Moulton takes some getting used to. I'm always conscious of it and can feel it as a I pedal along.

I bought an Arundel aero bottle and cage to sort of solve the problem. It's a horrible bottle.

[gxaustin]

Also makes it easy to give your bike the fashionable "high saddle low bars look".
[/quote]

How is that getting a comfortable position - or am I missing something? In my book fit is everything - not fashion. I'll leave that to you
[/quote]

Judging by the number of people I see on the road rocking their hips and pointing their toes to reach the pedal at the bottom, there are a lot of people who don't share your perspective........is all I meant.
[/quote]

Well I couldn't disagree with you. I wonder if those people just ride short distances? I can't belive they aren't saddle sore through taking too much weight on the saddle.
When I changed shoes from the winter ones I had to lower my saddle by a few mm - the soles were a different thickness. I could feel the difference without difficulty.

[Nearholmer]

On sunday, I came the nearest yet to flagging a fellow cyclist down and telling them to sort their saddle-height out.

Middle-aged guy on a sporty hybrid, all dressed-up for exercise. He very obviously had short legs and a long back for his height, and he had the seat set so high that the rocking was actually painful to watch, and his feet were like a ballet dancer on points at the bottom of the stroke.

Going along behind him for a bit was bad, truly bad, and I bet he gives up cycling, or buys an e-bike, "because its too difficult".