Overcomplicating. Tape measure from the middle of the BB to the top of the middle of your current saddle. That is your seat height. Put new seat on. Set the seat to the same height. Estimate how much of a difference there is in foam compression. Move the new seat that much. Try it out. Feel the same?
Precision down to the mm is not a requirement here. Maybe down to the 2-3mm increment or so. If your seat height is off by much more than that, you will begin to notice it. As has been stated here many times, there is a fairly wide range of seat heights that are not going to make you less powerful. If 76.55 is your “sweet spot” then 76.7 ain’t no big deal.
Dave Luscan
www.endorphinfitness.com
Then why do people pay $400+ for a ‘sweet spot’ bike fitting?
Moving your saddle even a couple of mm’s will change things. I can tell when I’ve moved my seat forward, backwards, up, down, whatever by a few mm’s. clear as day.
To the OP…trial and error! Make sure you tape/mark/measure your original seat rails and seatpost so you can always come back to the original fit and try-again once you’ve moved everything.
Don’t forget that your ass/bones will sit on a different part of the seat on EVERY seat…so you can’t just ‘measure to the top of the middle of the saddle’ as the other poster suggested…especially with the Adamo.
You’re right Stal, you can’t “just” measure form the bottom bracket to the top of the seat. But you can start there correct? I am not sure what a $400 “sweet spot” bike fitting is? Can you elaborate? After all you coined the term, not me. When I used the term sweet spot it was not to describe a type of fit or an overall fitting philosophy, as seems to be the way you are responding here. What was meant was that the graph of efficiency over various seat heights would look like a table top, so as you get within your range, which is relatively large, you are not gaining or losing too much by not being dead center of that range.
When I do my non-sweet-spot-bike-fitting, I like to stress that it isn’t imperative that we found the absolutely perfect spot for your seat to be located down to the millimeter. We get to acceptable places based on angles and measurements and then we make little movements based on rider preference. I take them to the door and then they walk through it themselves. Though I can do some hand holding as necessary.
If you can discriminate a seat height that moves 2 millimeters, you are in the minority. It is certainly possible, but most people haven’t spent the time on the bike or simply do not possess that degree of spatial awareness. Half a centimeter seems to be where more folks become aware though 1cm of seat height movement is perceived correctly only 50% of the time, in my experience doing several hundred fits.
Moving your saddle even a couple of mm’s will indeed change things, the biggest change will be that your saddle is a couple mm’s higher or lower.
To the OP, this is not complicated. YOU CAN use that standard measurement from BB to top of seat as your starting point. Like I said, from there you take into consideration the differing heights of the seats themselves. Following that logic, of course if your sit bones fall onto a different part of the seat, then consider that as well. Usually this effect is much smaller than the difference in foam thickness.
Dave Luscan
www.endorphinfitness.com
