Cycling UK Forum

i dont use cleats/spds or what ever you call them just normal pedals. I like my legs just a bit bent at the bottom stroke. I have been noticing that manyy riders bombing along the London roads at speed have considerable more bend in their legs, that I would find uncomfortable. Is this a cleat thing or are they just riding their bikes with the seat too low?

What makes you think your bit of bend is the correct amount for anyone else?

The TDF is on the box, just see the difference in what is "correct" between the riders!

There might well be many riders bombing around London with considerable more bend in their legs, all wrecking their knees... You might not see these same cycists still cycling in a few years - most of us know somebody who used to cycle until they damaged their knees, and I think that's probably why. Some of them even set their saddle like that so that they can put the ball of their foot down when they stop, which is liable to lead to injured knees, eventually (not by putting their foot down when they stop, of course, but by setting their saddles too low in order to be able to do so). It's a shame, because it's awesome to see so many people cycling, but I think there needs to be more education.

Curiously, 531colin often refers to Steve Hogg, the Australian bike fitter, who tends to find that riders' saddles are very often too high, but I think that tends to apply to roadies/experienced cyclists - with commuters and 'everyday' (well, until they injure themselves) cyclists I suspect it's the opposite.

kylecycler wrote:There might well be many riders bombing around London with considerable more bend in their legs, all wrecking their knees... You might not see these same cycists still cycling in a few years - most of us know somebody who used to cycle until they damaged their knees, and I think that's probably why. Some of them even set their saddle like that so that they can put the ball of their foot down when they stop, which is liable to lead to injured knees, eventually (not by putting their foot down when they stop, of course, but by setting their saddles too low in order to be able to do so). It's a shame, because it's awesome to see so many people cycling, but I think there needs to be more education.

Curiously, 531colin often refers to Steve Hogg, the Australian bike fitter, who tends to find that riders' saddles are very often too high, but I think that tends to apply to roadies/experienced cyclists - with commuters and 'everyday' (well, until they injure themselves) cyclists I suspect it's the opposite.

Perhaps you could educate us on the subject of the relative "damage" done to riders' bodies by having their saddles too low vs. too high?
I know lots of people who used to run or play sport until they damaged their knees, who are now cycling happily.
Cycling is very commonly recommended as rehabilitation post knee injury. It is true that many cyclists get sore knees, but the huge majority of these are "overuse" injuries. Cycling (unlike most other exercises) involves countless repetition of almost exactly the same movement, so its essential to make sure the knees are working over their preferred range of movement, and without twisting. Overuse injuries will generally respond to the simplest and most basic form of "treatment" .....which is to stop doing what is causing the soreness, get set up properly, and build the mileage back up slowly.

mercalia wrote:i dont use cleats/spds or what ever you call them just normal pedals. I like my legs just a bit bent at the bottom stroke. I have been noticing that manyy riders bombing along the London roads at speed have considerable more bend in their legs, that I would find uncomfortable. Is this a cleat thing or are they just riding their bikes with the seat too low?

Do they have their heel raised as well?

531colin wrote:Perhaps you could educate us on the subject of the relative "damage" done to riders' bodies by having their saddles too low vs. too high?
I know lots of people who used to run or play sport until they damaged their knees, who are now cycling happily.
Cycling is very commonly recommended as rehabilitation post knee injury. It is true that many cyclists get sore knees, but the huge majority of these are "overuse" injuries. Cycling (unlike most other exercises) involves countless repetition of almost exactly the same movement, so its essential to make sure the knees are working over their preferred range of movement, and without twisting. Overuse injuries will generally respond to the simplest and most basic form of "treatment" .....which is to stop doing what is causing the soreness, get set up properly, and build the mileage back up slowly.

Well you've pretty much answered your own question, too high and your hips will rock side to side causing hip or back problems and too low can encourage bad leg or ankle posture, leading to knee or ankle issues.

Of course if you are just pootling about and not doing any real exercise or riding with any frequency its much less of an issue..

This guy explains it very well..

[youtube]oxNznrlRXGU[/youtube]

I think OP is perhaps referring to the fact that having the saddle low means that there is a lot of 'bend' on the knee joint when at the top of the stroke. When I had a fit from the great George Longstaff he was very particular about saddle height and crank length, explaining that the importance of not straining the knees. He went as far as to place his hand between my calf and thigh at the back of the knee whilst I was peddling on the jig to check that his settings were correct. I don't know how scientific it was but it has served me well. If George says it .......

Mattyfez wrote:........
Well you've pretty much answered your own question, too high and your hips will rock side to side causing hip or back problems and too low can encourage bad leg or ankle posture, leading to knee or ankle issues......

I haven't "answered" it at all, and neither have you.
what hip problems? what back problems? are there no knee injuries caused by having your saddle too high?
what knee or ankle "issues" come from too low saddle?

I have sat through your Yank droning on once in my life, and once was more than enough.
If he really has got it nailed, why don't you point us to whatever bit of the whole hour long diatribe deals with saddle height?
At around 28 minutes he says the knee angle should be between 25 and 35 degrees.....is that it?

I developed a knee issue that was exacerbated by riding in cleats at my preferred height (which is relatively high) that eased significantly by dropping the saddle down to the same level I mtb at so I'd certainly disagree that to high saddle can't lead to knee issues. Similarly on the mtb side running relatively low saddles is not uncommon for those of us not willing to fork out a couple of hundred for a remote dropper post and I'm not aware knee issues are any more common there (ignoring crash generated injuries).

Ultimately my own problem was probably a knee cap tracking issue that I seem to have properly fixed (rather than just worked around) by doing some arbitrary lifting of heavy stuff at a gym (ie strengthening various leg and other nearby muscles so it tracked properly again).

As for London (or anywhere else) cyclists, there's a lot of horses for courses going on. Those with less flexible hamstrings will tend to prefer a lower saddle and once you're used to it it's not necessarily significantly less efficient, it's just working the various muscle groups differently. Sure if you always cycle with a high saddle then if you suddenly lower it you'll likely notice some nasty quad burn amongst other issues but I'd imagine the reverse is true as well for whatever muscles a high saddle works more.

I'm not exactly clear on what your having a problem with.
I found it quite logical.

Mattyfez wrote:I'm not exactly clear on what your having a problem with.
I found it quite logical.

Explain it to me.....how to set my saddle height.....should be ten sentences, ideally less than that.

531colin wrote:Perhaps you could educate us on the subject of the relative "damage" done to riders' bodies by having their saddles too low vs. too high?

I wasn't really talking about 'too low vs. too high', I was talking about seriously too low - way lower than you would set your saddle - but maybe there's no such thing?

Still, if you set your saddle so low that you could put both feet on the ground when you stop without getting out of the saddle - a couple of inches lower than you set your saddle, which is what I thought mercalia was referring to, you don't think you would cause any harm to your knees? Maybe you wouldn't, but I thought you would, so maybe I'm wrong. Any time I've run with my saddle much lower than you recommend, though, my knees tend to hurt, but maybe that's just me.

FWIW I've followed the guide you've often given a link to - your guide - like it was gospel, ever since you posted the link to it, not just blindly because you say so (although I've got every respect for you and your experience) but because you've explained and illustrated it so well, it makes sense to me and I seriously believe you're right. From where I had my saddle before I saw your guide, it's gone back and down - the saddle I was using didn't allow enough setback, so moving the new saddle further back I've had to move it down to keep the same extension / knee bend. As close as possible to how you set yours, but we were pretty close in the first place, which was reassuring for me - trust me, I wasn't criticizing your set up.

Also - technique - I strongly believe that you should pedal 'foot level', the way you and I have learned to pedal, not 'toe down'. After all, when we walk we don't walk on tiptoes, do we? Still, there are evidently TdF riders who would beg to differ. But I still think they're wrong.

What I've always believed, though, is that if the saddle is so low that the knee is excessively bent on the downstroke, that pulls the knee joint apart and causes injury. But maybe I'm wrong. That's what I meant anyway, and what I thought mercalia meant. I do believe it's all too common, but I might be wrong about that too. What I absolutely wasn't suggesting was that the saddle should be set higher than you set yours.

Sorry if that's a bit rambly, just trying to clear things up, and it's late.

A lot of commuters will like to be able to put their foot down flat when they stop at lights whilst remaining in the saddle, but this means having your saddle lower than most of us would consider ideal. I have my saddle set at a height where I can only just touch the ground with my toe when I stop, but I either come out of the saddle or tip the bike sideways slightly when I stop to put my foot down. My saddle is set so that I only have a slight bend at the bottom of the pedal stroke, which feels right to me when riding.

Different individual muscles which make up the quadriceps group have slightly different functions.
Vastus medialis is only working when the knee is almost straight, and in people whose chosen form of exercise doesn't include completely straightening the knee (pedallers, paddlers, and cross-country runners) the VM can be weaker than the rest of the quads. group. This is only a problem because the rest of the quads. pull the knee cap laterally as well as upwards, and its only the VM that pulls the knee cap medially and upwards.......it follows that without a strong VM you can get poor "tracking" of the knee cap in the groove in the end of the femur, and irritation of the cartilage....this is "patello-femoral syndrome". (The VM is easily strengthened by isometric straight-leg quads. exercises, for example hamstring stretches involve locking the knee, and we all do that, don't we? Getting out of the saddle on hills also helps.)
I don't know of any other damage that a low saddle will do to the knees.
I also see people riding with the saddle so low that it looks like a circus act, and I guess its inefficient because generations of cyclists have arrived at an efficient way of riding, and if you ride considerably differently to that then you are using a different part of the range of contraction of various muscles. I guess if you did it enough you would get a different pattern of muscle development, which may or may not be a bad thing. (I believe recumbent riders use a similar range of knee movement to upwrongs, but the hip muscles (glutes) operate in a different part of their range)

Kylecycler, thanks for the plug, its nice to know that somebody actually reads the stuff and finds it helpful, it sometimes feels like if I wrote it all on a bit of paper and chucked it out the window it would help as many cyclists as posting it on the internet. Made my day.

I think there may be a link between the search for an aerodynamic riding position, modern road bike design with steep seat tube angles, in-line seatposts and long handlebar stems, and pedalling toe-down all the time. It may make sense for world class professional athletes where wind resistance is a big issue, but i think recreational riding has different priorities.