Bike fit - all about the saddle?

May 10, 18 4:13

Post #1 of 8 (1120 views)

I do running, that’s what I do. I see runner after runner and what I see more often than not is the right shoe allows their body to run as if they were barefoot whereas the wrong shoe always causes problems.
No right shoe for everyone, but I’m noticing a significant trend towards a shoe that allows forefoot spread, a stable heel and works with the foot and not against it

What I see is in the wrong shoe a host of muscle based compensations that just hold stuff together, temporarily.

Bike fit.
I’ve looked at maybe 100-200 fits now as me and a friend are exploring the realm of bike fits.
And what I’m seeing is the same thing.
Bad saddle choice.
Bad pelvic position - rotation etc.
Leading to bad back position, and a host of compensations to deal with it.

Yet in these fits I see very few fitters trying different saddles to get this right.

A common trend seems to be.

Saddles too narrow, your sit bones might be 130mm but a 130mm saddle drops at the sides so sit bones are sliding off on each stroke.

Too flat - pretty sure Selle SMP nailed this, your undercarriage ain’t flat. A hammock shape, ala selle or spec romin/power HAS to be better.

Not wide enough cutout to fit the bits in for men in particular. How can you rotate the pelvis otherwise.

Am I completely off on this or should it be number 1 priority to find a saddle that is not only comfortable but also allows the proper pelvic rotation? Surely otherwise everything will change so what’s the point in fiddling with it?

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Re: Bike fit - all about the saddle? [TriByran] [ In reply to ]

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OddSlug

May 10, 18 5:10

Post #2 of 8 (1090 views)

I think it's a fair comparison. Not identical, obviously, but you can draw parallels. When you've found the right trainers you just run and don't think about them. That's what I want from a saddle, a wet suit and lots of stuff.

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Not wide enough cutout to fit the bits in for men in particular. How can you rotate the pelvis otherwise.

What I would say is the cut out in a saddle I've always thought of as being for the bit behind the bits. If that makes sense. In time trial position at least, and there are always exceptions, but the saying is 'junk off the front'. So get supported on the bones and not be resting on what is between the bones. So width wise, if the saddle makes the right contact with that part of the pelvis then any dip in between what you are sitting on should be fine, shouldn't it?

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Re: Bike fit - all about the saddle? [OddSlug] [ In reply to ]

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AlyraD

May 10, 18 5:22

Post #3 of 8 (1075 views)

I think that is an issue with a lot of folks, me included. Its where and how do you sit on a saddle and over coming the akward feeling that something isn't right until it feels normal. I just switched to a tri bike that came with the ISM PR 2.0 after coming off a road bike with a Bontrager Paradigm. Its a completely new feeling that I am not sure I am totally sure of yet. I think for the longest time I would sit on the trainer and move up and down on the saddle figuring out where it went (:

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Re: Bike fit - all about the saddle? [TriByran] [ In reply to ]

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trentnix

May 10, 18 6:24

Post #4 of 8 (1025 views)

TriByran wrote:

A common trend seems to be.

Saddles too narrow, your sit bones might be 130mm but a 130mm saddle drops at the sides so sit bones are sliding off on each stroke.

Too flat - pretty sure Selle SMP nailed this, your undercarriage ain’t flat. A hammock shape, ala selle or spec romin/power HAS to be better.

Not wide enough cutout to fit the bits in for men in particular. How can you rotate the pelvis otherwise.

Am I completely off on this or should it be number 1 priority to find a saddle that is not only comfortable but also allows the proper pelvic rotation? Surely otherwise everything will change so what’s the point in fiddling with it?

While it's not all about the saddle, the saddle is a critical component of bike fit and is a bike fit tool, not simply a means to achieve comfort.

I think you're off base in a couple of areas, though, and there are a few more notes to consider regarding triathlon saddles:

Your sit bones aren't really part of the equation on a tri bike. Proper pelvic rotation means your sit bones - your ischial tuberosity - aren't loaded much at all. A fitter in my area that isn't very good has finally figured this out and pretends like he's discovered the New World when the guys at Retul (and elsewhere) were talking about this more than 7 years ago.
Sliding forward off of a saddle is a bigger issue than sliding off the side. Saddle angle can help with riders that slide, but usually the fix is found in angling the armpads to prevent the rider from sliding forward. It gives the rider something to lean against, so to speak.
Hammock shaped saddles are usually the very worst, because they force you to apply weight to soft tissue and because the average rider sits so far aft on the saddle. In fact, 9 out of 10 fits with traditional saddle shapes - think Selle saddles, Profile Design Stryke, "road" saddles - are poor. I can usually just look at a bike and tell you if the fit is poor, and the obvious signs are bad saddle selection combined with minimal armpad drop.
Not everyone is capable of being comfortable in the saddle. Some people can sit on a cactus. Others struggle to sit on a puff of air. Your mileage may vary.
Not everyone is really capable of "proper pelvic rotation" for numerous reasons that a fitter can't control. Lots of fits get criticized for being inadequate when the problem is actually rider posture. I can't tell you how many good fits I've done where the race photos looked poor because the rider wasn't holding good posture. Pelvic rotation was poor, head was too high, etc. Even a trained eye can be fooled into thinking a bike fit is bad because posture is poor. Here's a mild example of what I'm talking about:
https://www.instagram.com/...?taken-by=dfwtrishop
Riders sometimes change where they sit on a saddle for various reasons and it can negatively impact a great fit. Take a look at this example:
https://www.instagram.com/...en-by=trishopbikefit
When I sold that bike, the rider looked excellent. But 18 months after they bought the bike, they came in looking like the initial part of the video. I confirmed that the saddle and armpads and everything were exactly where I put them - the rider had simply changed where they sit on the saddle. Just by changing the extensions to improve the ergonomics of where her hands were contacting resulted in everything else falling back into place..

One of the reasons some of the better fitters out there are frustrated that bikes are too narrow (where once they were all too long and too low) is seat post angle and saddle selection. Putting a rider on a modern anatomical saddle, such as an ISM PS-series, can result in a rider sitting 3-6 cm more forward than they might on a more traditional saddle, such as a Fizik Arione. Couple that with super steep seatpost angles (such as the 79.5 degree neutral seatpost angle on the Felt IA) and riders can sit significantly more forward than they used to. That has several nice side effects - hip angles are open even with longer cranks, it encourages better pelvic rotation, etc.

Good fitters back in the day were compensating for those long P4s and P3s (many of which also had fixed fore-aft armpad positions, making cockpit adjustment difficult) with anatomical saddles and Cervelo's steepest saddle clamp option. And those fits looked great. But the average fitter struggled and was shortening stems and begging for narrower bikes. And then we get the Shiv, it sells like hotcakes, and triathlon bikes got much taller and much narrower following Specialized's lead (no industry is more lemming-like that the bike industry, for the record).

As average fitters started using anatomical saddles more and more and the seatposts got steeper as well, the narrow bikes got too narrow, all of a sudden.

But back to your point, the rider's seating position affects virtually every other aspect of a bike fit and is definitely a critical part of getting the fit right.

Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

Last edited by: trentnix: May 10, 18 6:28

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Re: Bike fit - all about the saddle? [AlyraD] [ In reply to ]

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sciguy

May 10, 18 6:28

Post #5 of 8 (1017 views)

AlyraD wrote:

Its where and how do you sit on a saddle

Ditto. I get a bit unsettled when triathletes using stub nosed saddles get fixated on sit bone width. Those pubic rami connect at your midline and you ought to be rotated over onto them rather than hunched back on the classic sit bones. So the width of the sit bones is a red herring when we're talking about aero position with substantial anterior pelvic tilt.

YMMV
Hugh

Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

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Re: Bike fit - all about the saddle? [trentnix] [ In reply to ]

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TriByran

May 10, 18 9:45

Post #6 of 8 (924 views)

Sorry, I was actually looking at road bike stuff when I was talking about sit bones.
Completely agree on the other bits although I think the hammock still works on the TT provided it’s done in the right way, which every saddle I tried didn’t do. So I made my own!

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Re: Bike fit - all about the saddle? [TriByran] [ In reply to ]

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trentnix

May 10, 18 9:50

Post #7 of 8 (915 views)

TriByran wrote:

You say the right way, but it would be better said as the way I like.

There is no shortage of viable saddle options on the market.

Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

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Re: Bike fit - all about the saddle? [trentnix] [ In reply to ]

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TriByran

May 10, 18 9:54

Post #8 of 8 (904 views)

Maybe. Plenty of options that sort of work. Very few that are spot on IMHO, this came from a short canvas (200 triathletes) where around 90% of people I asked thought their saddle could be improved.

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