Saddle height again

[Vorpal]

I can only just touch the ground with my very tippy toes from the saddle. I guess, having ridden oversized men's racers from my teens, it never occurred to me that this was problem

I either mount from the kerb, or put my leg over, get the pedal ready and put myself on the saddle with push off. I also come off the saddle if I need to stop for anything.

The problem with lower BBs is hitting stuff with them. I've scraped the top of sleeping policemen with the BB on my road bike, and the occasional bump or ditch edge with the BB on my hybrid offroad.

My daughter mounts the tandem by putting her left foot on the left pedal and swinging her leg over while I hold the bike.

[snibgo]

What is the general rule/feeling about this KOPS business?
On all my bikes, with riding position obtained by fiddling about until I'm comfortable, if I hold a plumb line in the dent between the knee cap and the tibial tuberosity (the little knob on the top of the shin bone), cranks horizontal, then the weight points pretty much at the pedal spindle.

FWIW, a plumb line from the front point of my knee drops to about 3cm in front of the pedal spindle, with cranks horizontal.

[ambodach]

Nobody has mentioned the dreaded Hip Bursitis yet. (google it) I always liked to have my saddle as high as was comfortable and have done this for many years. This summer I got problems with pain in my left hip and upper thigh muscles while walking but not while cycling. This seems to be the aforementioned bursits caused apparently by having the saddle too high. I lowered the height of the saddle by about one and one half inches and did the recommended excercises.The problem is now gone. This first came to my notice in the CTC mag.a few months ago. I have now come to the conclusion that my legs are of slightly different lengths and the left leg is very slightly shorter than the right.

[Gearoidmuar]

Nobody has mentioned the dreaded Hip Bursitis yet. (google it) I always liked to have my saddle as high as was comfortable and have done this for many years. This summer I got problems with pain in my left hip and upper thigh muscles while walking but not while cycling. This seems to be the aforementioned bursits caused apparently by having the saddle too high. I lowered the height of the saddle by about one and one half inches and did the recommended excercises.The problem is now gone. This first came to my notice in the CTC mag.a few months ago. I have now come to the conclusion that my legs are of slightly different lengths and the left leg is very slightly shorter than the right.

Well ostepaths will always tell you that your legs are different lengths. There's a fair degree of hocus pocus in that.
But, my daughter who is a top class runner has legs which are the same length, but one of her knees is an inch lower than the other. Her thigh is correspondingly longer on that side, but it has the peculiar and harmless side effect that when she is jogging she appears to be limping. When she's running it's not apparent. Humans are seldom really symmetrical.

[Ayesha]

Adjust the saddle according to the length of your shorter leg.

For the purpose of setting up a bike, your 'Leg length' is your Standing Height minus your Sitting Height minus half of your leg length discrepency.

As I have found, an additional correction is necessary to compensate for saddle 'flare' from the nose to its widest part.

'Trial and error' in an experimental procedure, and some trigonometry sorted out a 'correction factor', which will be published in my next book

[reohn2]

Well ostepaths will always tell you that your legs are different lengths.There's a fair degree of hocus pocus in that..
But, my daughter who is a top class runner has legs which are the same length, but one of her knees is an inch lower than the other. Her thigh is correspondingly longer on that side, but it has the peculiar and harmless side effect that when she is jogging she appears to be limping. When she's running it's not apparent. Humans are seldom really symmetrical.

Hmmm,well,err

[The Mechanic]

FWIIW I have never been able to touch the ground whilst seated on any of my bikes. I am a particularly short legged person (no snide comments please) and find it impossible to get a bike that fits me and lets me touch the ground. My inside leg is 28 inches and I am 5 feet 7.5 inches (don't forget the 0.5). If I lower the saddle so I can touch the ground, my knees are hitting my chest when I pedal and my leg is still half bent with the pedal at full extension. Nothing fits me off the peg.

[Ayesha]

I have just had an invention

A pair of stabilisers that automatically lift when the bike is in motion, and flick down when the bike comes to a halt.

[niggle]

FWIIW I have never been able to touch the ground whilst seated on any of my bikes. I am a particularly short legged person (no snide comments please) and find it impossible to get a bike that fits me and lets me touch the ground. My inside leg is 28 inches and I am 5 feet 7.5 inches (don't forget the 0.5). If I lower the saddle so I can touch the ground, my knees are hitting my chest when I pedal and my leg is still half bent with the pedal at full extension. Nothing fits me off the peg.

No snide comments from me, I am 5' 6.5" with a 27" inside leg (for trouser fitting purposes, my standover is more like 29"). I have never had a bike where I could touch the ground with both feet whilst sat on the saddle. One other significant factor is the seat tube angle, I believe some dutch bikes have a very slack angle which gives you more of a chance of getting your feet down if you are short. Racier bikes with steep angles will be the worst for this, exacerbated by standard crank lengths, standard BB heights to accomodate them and standardised wheel size at 700c.

Of course I am totally used to working around this, just like I am to avoiding issues with the lack of standover clearance and toe clearance, but still this should not be so.

[Ayesha]

The last bike I rode where I could put both my feet down while sat in the saddle was a Schwinn Stingray.

[Phil_Lee]

My legs are neither too long or too short - they are the precise length needed to fill the otherwise unsightly gap between my backside and the ground.

On a different issue, I've never regarded KOPS as a sensible way of measuring - all it does is regulate the relative proportion of weight borne by the saddle and legs, with any remainder left for the hands.

There are a large number of people for whom KOPS just doesn't work, which includes almost anyone who couldn't care less if there bike is UCI compliant or not.