DQ: I’ve never felt locked in to a saddle, and just kinda let my legs determine where my butt is going to be while I ride and then put my saddle in the comfiest spot for that. Should I really be playing with saddle fore/aft and make an effort to sit where the saddle tells me to sit?
fuck around and find out
play with where your shoulders and elbows go to be balanced
if you pull the saddle forward it should usually also go up
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I guess I will
Are you g’ing out (not in the cool rapper way) while riding uphill? Move saddle forward. Worked for me.
A long time ago, I learned to scoot forward onto the nose of the saddle and drop my elbows. That puts you in a better position to not loop out. I do it on loose surfaces to avoid spinning out, too.
It was either Mountain Bike Action or some grizzled guy on the trail that gave me that nugget.
Yeah and having the nose of the saddle right on your tenderhole makes you pedal harder too to keep the weight off
So double bonus for the climby sections
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Yeah loop out, that’s the proper terminology!
If you move your saddle up, you can just comfortably spin.
Yeah but then your saddle is in the way later.
The saddle is just a place to rest.
But… dropper post.
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I thought we were talking fore aft
More gründle; less tenderhöle.
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Ya we are. Dropper still gets it out of the way. I mean, we’re talking millimeters here. The saddle is in the same place in the grand scheme of things.
While we are discussing saddles, I have 2 questions:
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On my Ripmo my bars are a wee bit higher than my saddle, does it matter if it feels good?
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I’d like a new saddle. My butt really likes Brooks C15s and OG flights, what modern MTB saddles should I be looking at?
No and why
What about getting a C15 for the mtb? They’re pretty durable and mud resistant.
I like Ergon but it’s gonna be highly personal ain’t it. I’d get something with padding on the side. WTB I think is another safe brand.
The saddle I just replaced with an Ergon destroyed my inner thighs (though it had a particularly poor design for a mtb with its protruding carbon sides).
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But they are soooo heavy.
If that’s where bars are, that’s where they are. Maybe later as you get used to it, you may want them lower. Being on the taller end, I have saddle to bar drop on my bikes, just because.
Sadly never gotten on those two saddles. My rear seems to like Fabic Scoop Radius saddles for mtb, and arione on the road.
I noticed that smaller riders often have higher-than-saddle bars and it’s fine. And taller riders have them lower, even when they can proportionally put them in the same place with risers.
I hypothesize it’s due to weight distribution being wonkier for taller riders since our center of mass is usually further back - even with size-specific chainstays. It’s harder to get enough ‘bite’ on the front tire if proportionally more of the weight is on the rear tire, so I’m assuming we have to lean forward and down further to make up for it.
This is kinda ‘back of the envelope’ level thinking, but it is striking to me how different MTB proportions are for us galoots.
Yup, I am a shorty and this logic seems to apply to me. Skill and fitness have been my limiting factors rather than bike set up so far.
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