I had a Kickr bike which I believe went down to 145mm. If I was running a fit studio that machine would be my first investment!!!

I really didn't want to have to replace the perfectly good adjustable cranks on my fit bike, but it's essentially malpractice for a bike fitter to be unable to explore solutions in that range. Has been for quite some time.

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Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
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So I did my first full IM length training ride today. I did stop a couple times and try some different angles on the seat. My baseline was roughly +8* (nose up). I actually kind of like this angle because, as I said earlier, when I'm down on the aero bars I can rest my pelvic bone on the nose of the saddle and I get good support.

But with so many insisting nose up is a bad idea, I stopped after about 10-12 miles and lowered the nose. Went down to around +4* and rode that for another 10-12 miles. I liked that too. I wasn't able to support weight on my pelvic bone like before, but it was still a reasonably comfortable position. I stopped again and adjusted the nose to an approximately neutral position. Rode that 5-6 miles. Nope. I did not like that at all. I went back to the +4* and finished the remainder of the ride like that. I was certainly ready to get off the bike after 112 miles, but I was able to finish the ride and as I sit here now there is only very mild soreness in the area.

I am looking at that Bisaddle. I'm hoping to pick up a refurb but the Bonneville isn't in stock at the moment. In the meantime, I'm going to try one of those De Soto covers over my current Bontrager and see how that works for me.

This doesn't make a lot of sense. Saddle and height and position is a huge component of a bike fit. Either you didn't understand what the fitter was doing, you were not giving them good feedback or you need to go to another place.

It also doesn't make a ton of sense for someone your height to be using ~170 mm cranks on a TT bike. Arguably the best cyclist in the world, Pogacar, who is 5'9" uses 165 mm cranks on both road and TT bike.
It takes a few weeks for your body to adapt to a new crank length. Have you tried comparing how well you run off the bike using shorter cranks?

Also, the number one position flaw on a TT bike is to raise the saddle to open up the hip angle. So lower the saddle is your first step.[/quote]Ya, I was not particularly impressed with Swanny's. I certainly didn't feel like I got good value for my money, hence why I tend to shy away from the LBS and do a lot of the work myself.

And the cranks on the Shiv are 165mm. On my Ridley, they're 150. The Ridley came with 170 but I changed them out to the 150s but haven't been happy with them yet. And I've probably ridden that bike 200-300 miles with them. Just because of my natural cadence, I think 160-165mm is really kind of a sweet spot for me.

As for saddle height, I've tried lower but if I go much lower than where I am now, I start to flair out my knees at the top of the crank so I don't get interference.

Yes, we do have different requirements. But we also have some options they don't. I think if someone truly designed a saddle just for women, the nose would flair out and up with lots of padding so we could rest the pubic bone on it.

I put 150s in my Ridley. I really don't like them. I'm always hunting for the right gear. I'm more of a grinder than a spinner so the shorter cranks take away some of that leverage that I naturally use. I find that I'm in a gear for a given speed, but I can't put any power into it, so I shift to a lower gear. Now I'm spinning faster than what is comfortable and I can't maintain my pace. So I shift up, no power, shift down, spin too fast, shift up, no power, etc, etc.

I did see your post earlier but chose not to comment at the time. It's a valid consideration, but I don't have any of the typical symptoms. I suppose the next time I see my PCP it wouldn't hurt to mention it though, just to have an assessment. I've never had children but I am on the wrong side of 50 so who knows what's working correctly and what isn't?

Ya, I think the fit apparatus at Swanny's only goes down to 155. There was a lot to be desired there.

I think part of the problem is that I'm pretty resilient and I need to be on the bike and in position for at least 15-20 minutes to get a good feel for what's going on. I can accommodate some really weird geometry for 5-10 minutes without really noticing it. I don't think I'm all that weird though. I'll bet most people here could do the same.

Why not post a video of your current fit here?

Also, I can’t past this notion that short cranks you spin too fast….shift down one gear then. As far as can find a proper gear either too fast or too slow, what cassette are you using? I can see this on a 1x with a gravel cassette but can’t understand on a road set up.

I certainly don't have any first hand experience here, but my wife is 5'2" and could never get comfortable on any of her bikes. I finally bought into the "short crank" thing and went to 165s (I'm 6'3") and love it. I put 145s on her road bike after a knee surgery and now she requires them on every bike she has.

To be fair, she has put a ton more miles on her bikes after the surgery than before, but she is a huge proponent of shorty cranks and it's a relatively cheap and simple swap.

I suppose it could be the chain rings too. The old crank set up had 53/39, this new one has 50/34 (I think it's 34). I'm not for sure on the cassette though. I have a couple different wheels with slightly different cassettes for different courses. Not sure which one is on there right now. I'll take a look tomorrow.

If I can figure out how to post a video, I might do that. Do you remember like 15 or 20 years ago being stuck behind that old lady writing checks at the grocery store? Ya, well, when it comes to technology, that's me.

That's the biggest problem with bike fits. The fitter gets you to hop on, so how does that feel 'yeah not bad'... Great my work here is done, that will be $$$ thanks.

The problem of course is what feels great for 5,10, 30 mins, hell even 2 hours can be excruciating after 3+ hours..

Exactly

One thing to keep in mind about long IM distance/duration rides.

The wattage for most of us is "so low" that we end up with waaaay too much weight on the saddle because of low crank force. So inherently no matter what all fit you do, it becomes uncomfortable at low wattage versus at 1 hrs effort. Also the pain cues in the body are from "everything else" at 1 hrs duration, not from saddle. At IM effort there is no pain from working muscles since the effort is low, so you notice stupid things like saddle, neck, eye strain etc etc.

My entire view on this is that I won't ride my TT bike more than 4 hrs and if I do it, that's going to be at close to half IM race pace with some short bouts of threshold work too.

If I am going to ride for IM duration, I just putter around on my road bike which is designed for endless hours of "comfort". TT bike is for TTing hard. Don't expect road bike comfort at low intensity riding on the TT bike at IM effort.

The day of the IM just suck up the discomfort in the final few hours. You know you are going to get out of that position and celebrate never wanting to sit on a TT bike again by running a marathon anyway....and then 1 day after crossing the finish line, you sign up for another IM and repeat the stupidity all over again.

To some degree there is no real holy grail here. Get a reasonable fit, with a reasonable saddle with a reasonable position that you can hold for 180 km and just deal with it. TT bikes are meant to be ridden hard and most of us ride IM's too slow to not have discomfort at some point.

Have you checked out this website?https://www.bikeseatguru.com/bike-seat-test.html
I used to get numb every ride then switched to a SMP and that is gone. Weird looking saddle, but worked great.

Barry at Cyclologic was mentioned in this thread, so I thought I'd chime in as I was just fit by him and had a great experience. I was fit at the end of March, ordered a Quintana Roo set exactly to his output, and then I went in a few days ago with the bike to finalize/tweak and swap to my preferred saddle. One detail: I don't have any particular issues that bother me, and I think I'm fairly adaptive or at least not picky about things. Some things that I really liked working with Barry:

• He started me on the saddle that he thought would have the best chance of success based on his experience with many fits (ISM PN3.1 40). I liked this saddle a lot, so we didn't try others.
• He was conscious of not spending unnecessary money and of the overall riding experience I would end up with. For example, he recommended we stick with the Shimano 160mm unless I really needed shorter, as the Rotor cranks are a significant upcharge and he doesn't feel that they shift as nicely on 12 speed Shimano as the stock Ultegra that the bike came with. I was happy with 160mm, so this wasn't an issue for me.
• He asked how I felt every step of the way. This is where I'm probably not the best customer because a lot is perfectly fine for me, and I don't have the most detailed feedback. Still, I appreciate his approach.
• Lastly, going forward after the fit he suggested some exercises to ask a PT about and gave me a couple fit adjustment suggestions if I find discomfort as I ride longer. For example, widening the arm cups one position if the outsides of my shoulders are aching.

I'll agree with a lot of the commentary here - given the things you've tried or are thinking of trying, it seems like a fit where you can try lots of saddles and crank lengths would be great. Even better if that person has experience to help guide you to solutions. It's a bit of money ($400 in my case) but you can easily spend more than that trying one saddle and crank that don't work out! Good luck with your fit, and good luck at Ironman AZ this fall!

Thanks to all that contributed to this thread. I'm still playing with my set up and hope to get it dialed in before the heat of the summer. Last thing I want to do is be playing with my set up all the way to race day. But if it comes down to it, I know I can do 112 miles on the bike, and it's only one day of pain. The title lasts a lifetime.