I’ve got one of the older style Cannondale seat posts which has an annoying saddle clamp arrangement.
There are two hemispherical tubes that clamp around the saddle rails. One of these has a series of ridges that interlock with ridges on the clamp that tightens down to hold everything in place.
The annoying thing is that the ridges cause your nose-up/nose-down saddle adjustment to happen in discrete increments.
So I have the option of nose down, slowly sliding forward as I ride, and have to re-adjust my position on the bike every 5-10 minutes or so.
Or I can have the nose too far up, and sing castrato parts, which has never been an ambition of mine.
Does anyone know how to defeat this unfortunate seat clamp design?
That is the worst design, ever. Just because the design is unique and clever doesn’t mean it is good. On the contrary, unique and clever are often synonymous with not tested long enough.
have the same ting on my slice. supposedly the ridges on the two halves are different, so if one side don’t work, swap the halves and try again. it’s always taken me ages to get it sorted right, will be doing it again tomorrow night as i swap in my IM saddle with the cage holder ahead of IM lanza in a few weeks
I have a slice with this mechanism. I have not had any issues with it. I don’t understand your problem. The ridges are tiny and provide a miniscule amount of change in tilt when rotating the clamp ridge to ridge, I can’t imagine how the small different in saddle tilt from rotating it one notch is causing you such noticeable problems. Am I reading your post right?
I have a slice with this mechanism. I have not had any issues with it. I don’t understand your problem. The ridges are tiny and provide a miniscule amount of change in tilt when rotating the clamp ridge to ridge, I can’t imagine how the small different in saddle tilt from rotating it one notch is causing you such noticeable problems. Am I reading your post right?
My guess is that people were frustrated with the original design and C’dale came back with a finer-grained version. Each notch on mine is a pretty big difference.
I’ll try flipping to the other side as suggested above.
I do have to say I otherwise really like this bike.
I have a slice with this mechanism. I have not had any issues with it. I don’t understand your problem. The ridges are tiny and provide a miniscule amount of change in tilt when rotating the clamp ridge to ridge, I can’t imagine how the small different in saddle tilt from rotating it one notch is causing you such noticeable problems. Am I reading your post right?
My guess is that people were frustrated with the original design and C’dale came back with a finer-grained version. Each notch on mine is a pretty big difference.
I’ll try flipping to the other side as suggested above.
I do have to say I otherwise really like this bike.
I have that Slice with that really massive jumps between “clicks”. If Cannondale came back with a finer grain version it would be awesome. Literally it is the only thing I did not like about that old Slice. I still have that bike as my “rain” tri bike and my “non race travel” tri bike. Love the rest of the bike hate the seat post.
I’ve had lots of fun getting mine sorted out the few times I’ve needed to make a change.
I wish someone like Ritchey would make a replacement with a better arrangement.
They might sell a few of them.
I rode the Slice for years, had the same problem with the Fizik Arione Saddle that i could not get it to the right position and changed the saddle, then it was better with the adjustment.
The two similar parts above and below saddle rails are the saddle clamps. As has been said only the top one is grooved. The grooves are in 3 degree increments. But the grooves are slightly offset. So if you take the upper saddle clamp out and spin it around, front to back, the grooves are all 1.5 degrees different to how they were before. So you will have a groove that is exactly in between two previous grooves.
Just saying what has been said before but thought different words might help because I might of read some above as swapping the two saddle clamps over.
The two similar parts above and below saddle rails are the saddle clamps. As has been said only the top one is grooved. The grooves are in 3 degree increments. But the grooves are slightly offset. So if you take the upper saddle clamp out and spin it around, front to back, the grooves are all 1.5 degrees different to how they were before. So you will have a groove that is exactly in between two previous grooves.
Just saying what has been said before but thought different words might help because I might of read some above as swapping the two saddle clamps over.
I tried this last night and it looks like I may have found the Goldilocks spot.
Just saying what has been said before but thought different words might help because I might of read some above as swapping the two saddle clamps over.
yeah, that was me, i had it backwards, i knew you could get a different set of settings by flipping it, my memory was it was swapping top and bottom, but it had been a while so had it wrong.
one thing i did remember to do was mark it with a permemant paint marker last time i got it set right. so last night changed over my saddle, made sure it was all lined up and had it all done in 5 mins. 100 miles today and no issue
one thing i did remember to do was mark it with a permemant paint marker last time i got it set right. so last night changed over my saddle, made sure it was all lined up and had it all done in 5 mins. 100 miles today and no issue
Exactly what I was thinking re:marking it, it’s a good point. I actually think it’s a pretty good design. Just you need to know the trick. Seems like you can be pretty precise and not need to over tighten the clamps. You can make incremental changes and repeat exact angle when making a change, which is pretty cool.
I have exactly the same problem. would love to find a solution!
Did you read the rest of the thread? The OPs problem is solved. Did you try flipping the top saddle clamp front to back? As Mossym suggests I’d mark one edge of the top clamp then you can be sure you have tried it in both positions.
