icecube57
10 MW
Ok boys and girls Im here to talk to you today about your bike and seat ride height and saddle. Feel free to chip in and add your two cents.
If you are a serious bike rider Im pretty sure you have been to a bike shop to be sized for a bike. One of the most important things i saddle height and handlebar height. This can make or break the comfort of a bike.
If you have your seat too high and your handle bars too low you will be putting alot of your weight on your hands and you will put a strain on you back. This also shifts the weight off your butt but this can also cause you to grip your handlebars tighter than normal and your hands can fall alseep.
If you have your handlebars to high you create a greater surface area for your bike and motor to push through. Steering and handling can be affected.
If you have your seat to low any pedal force you apply will be wasted and applied at wrong angles and this can cause joint/knee pain. This can also make pedaling difficult causing you to pedal in a much lower gear because it seems difficult to pedal in higher gears.
Raising the seat a few inches can make a night and day difference on how effective your pedaling force is. This is great for hypemiling because you dont want any energy you body output wasted from working harder than you have to.
Typically the seat height on a bike is adjusted by raising the seat until your leg is near vertical with a slight bend at the knee when the pedal is at the bottom of the rotation of the crank. Using a higher/correctly adjusted seat high helps your chode (the skin between you anus and scrotum) from getting sore. This is because your legs are partially supporting your weight with every stroke and its not dead weight sitting on your chode and "sit bone"
The downside is sometimes this height can be so high that it makes it impossible to mount your bike. Also the higher seat height gives the bike a higher center of gravity when cornering making the bike feel top heavy.
Since we do have electric bikes pedaling isnt a must but when accelerating any input from pedaling from 0-20 or 25 the motor would be greatly appreciated of this effort. Even up hills a little bit of pedaling goes a long way.
So set your seat high to what style of riding you do. If you have a legal low powered system you may want to set your bike up to where you pedaling effort is more effortless and the bike feels more natural to ride. If you are a high speed racer with plenty of power and battery on tap then pedaling is least of your worries so a lower ride height is more appropriate. Your handling will be better and your ride stance will be more relaxed instead of more tense and ridgid with a higher seat height.
One thing to address is men and our junk... Yeah you know what Im talking about..... The family jewels. The long dong of donkey kong and his barrels..The banana and mandarin oranges in brown or white paper sacks... Depending on the cut of your pants can interfere with your seat ride height. My pants are more relaxed fit so the inseam of my pants sit lower than the base of my two brown eggs... So I often find myself pulling the slack in my pants up to where I can mount my saddle properly. But if I lower my saddle 2-3 inch mounting my bike isnt anywhere near as bad. I can mount my bike much quicker.
If you are going for a chopper stance with the lower seat height consider a saddle thats wide at the back and cut off in the front. One of the downsides to this is if you dont get the angle right on the saddle your legs will fall asleep.
People and their physical conditions to where they cant lift their leg up to clear the appropriate/ correctly fitted seat high should use lower saddle height somewhat closer to the heigh of a motorcyle and compensate the lower pedal power input with higher wattage output of the controller because their input will be closer to useless and bad for their hip and joints.
Another issue is if you are having problems with your junk getting tender and stuff and everythings adjusted correctly... is your bike geared correctly. If your gearing it to high you have a condition to where your pedal force applying any force to spin the wheel nor does it have any resistance to give your body that partial lift by the saddle. I have a 48f and and 11 rear. I can pedal up to the lower to mid 20s before I start to over spin. If you have a 14 or sometimes 16t on some bikes you are lucky to make it up to 15-17mph before pedaling is useless... then you have dead weight sitting on your ass bone and a sore taint is in you future.
You have seat post like the Thud Buster thats supposed to make your ride more comfortable but have you when you think of it when you do hit a bump it dampens the bump but you have the force of your body accelerating downward and then you have a counteracting force pushing up on your chode springing you back up... Its a good idea it helps on bumpy roads but in the long run its no better than a regular seat.
So choose your saddle based on your bike and riding style and physical capeability.
Another thing to address is the wide air and gel saddle. This I do recommend. Your sit bones are somewhat pointed . You have your ass muscles and fat if you have a little junk in the trunk to cushion this bone. These narrow regular saddles pretty much almost ride up your ass like a g string and offer no support. The wide gel seats have a wider foot print to accomidate many asses of different shapes and sizes and the gel or air molds or forms to the contour of your ass abone to offer more support. If you are an active pedaler tilting the saddle down can help alot to make it easier to pedal and make it more comfortable. Tilt to much and you have issues staying on the saddle and may slip off.
If you are a serious bike rider Im pretty sure you have been to a bike shop to be sized for a bike. One of the most important things i saddle height and handlebar height. This can make or break the comfort of a bike.
If you have your seat too high and your handle bars too low you will be putting alot of your weight on your hands and you will put a strain on you back. This also shifts the weight off your butt but this can also cause you to grip your handlebars tighter than normal and your hands can fall alseep.
If you have your handlebars to high you create a greater surface area for your bike and motor to push through. Steering and handling can be affected.
If you have your seat to low any pedal force you apply will be wasted and applied at wrong angles and this can cause joint/knee pain. This can also make pedaling difficult causing you to pedal in a much lower gear because it seems difficult to pedal in higher gears.
Raising the seat a few inches can make a night and day difference on how effective your pedaling force is. This is great for hypemiling because you dont want any energy you body output wasted from working harder than you have to.
Typically the seat height on a bike is adjusted by raising the seat until your leg is near vertical with a slight bend at the knee when the pedal is at the bottom of the rotation of the crank. Using a higher/correctly adjusted seat high helps your chode (the skin between you anus and scrotum) from getting sore. This is because your legs are partially supporting your weight with every stroke and its not dead weight sitting on your chode and "sit bone"
The downside is sometimes this height can be so high that it makes it impossible to mount your bike. Also the higher seat height gives the bike a higher center of gravity when cornering making the bike feel top heavy.
Since we do have electric bikes pedaling isnt a must but when accelerating any input from pedaling from 0-20 or 25 the motor would be greatly appreciated of this effort. Even up hills a little bit of pedaling goes a long way.
So set your seat high to what style of riding you do. If you have a legal low powered system you may want to set your bike up to where you pedaling effort is more effortless and the bike feels more natural to ride. If you are a high speed racer with plenty of power and battery on tap then pedaling is least of your worries so a lower ride height is more appropriate. Your handling will be better and your ride stance will be more relaxed instead of more tense and ridgid with a higher seat height.
One thing to address is men and our junk... Yeah you know what Im talking about..... The family jewels. The long dong of donkey kong and his barrels..The banana and mandarin oranges in brown or white paper sacks... Depending on the cut of your pants can interfere with your seat ride height. My pants are more relaxed fit so the inseam of my pants sit lower than the base of my two brown eggs... So I often find myself pulling the slack in my pants up to where I can mount my saddle properly. But if I lower my saddle 2-3 inch mounting my bike isnt anywhere near as bad. I can mount my bike much quicker.
If you are going for a chopper stance with the lower seat height consider a saddle thats wide at the back and cut off in the front. One of the downsides to this is if you dont get the angle right on the saddle your legs will fall asleep.
People and their physical conditions to where they cant lift their leg up to clear the appropriate/ correctly fitted seat high should use lower saddle height somewhat closer to the heigh of a motorcyle and compensate the lower pedal power input with higher wattage output of the controller because their input will be closer to useless and bad for their hip and joints.
Another issue is if you are having problems with your junk getting tender and stuff and everythings adjusted correctly... is your bike geared correctly. If your gearing it to high you have a condition to where your pedal force applying any force to spin the wheel nor does it have any resistance to give your body that partial lift by the saddle. I have a 48f and and 11 rear. I can pedal up to the lower to mid 20s before I start to over spin. If you have a 14 or sometimes 16t on some bikes you are lucky to make it up to 15-17mph before pedaling is useless... then you have dead weight sitting on your ass bone and a sore taint is in you future.
You have seat post like the Thud Buster thats supposed to make your ride more comfortable but have you when you think of it when you do hit a bump it dampens the bump but you have the force of your body accelerating downward and then you have a counteracting force pushing up on your chode springing you back up... Its a good idea it helps on bumpy roads but in the long run its no better than a regular seat.
So choose your saddle based on your bike and riding style and physical capeability.
Another thing to address is the wide air and gel saddle. This I do recommend. Your sit bones are somewhat pointed . You have your ass muscles and fat if you have a little junk in the trunk to cushion this bone. These narrow regular saddles pretty much almost ride up your ass like a g string and offer no support. The wide gel seats have a wider foot print to accomidate many asses of different shapes and sizes and the gel or air molds or forms to the contour of your ass abone to offer more support. If you are an active pedaler tilting the saddle down can help alot to make it easier to pedal and make it more comfortable. Tilt to much and you have issues staying on the saddle and may slip off.
It's called a taint -- taint ass, taint equipment. :lol:
adjustable stems
