What frame offers the most forward saddle position?
I have an older Shiv and I just located and purchased the seatpost that allows the saddle to be positioned a good 1-2 inches farther forward than the original. I personally find that I never feel far enough forward for comfort. At least within reason. I know tri bikes have a more aggressive seat tube angle than the typical road bike, but even so, I never feel far enough forward. I think, ideally, I want my hips to be almost directly over top of my crank centerline.
I’ve seen a couple of bikes with really aggressive angles like this, and it makes me wonder why it’s not more common. I’ve been looking around at a few current offerings and hardly any seem to be nearly as aggressive as I want. I think the closest is actually the Trek Speed Concept, and maybe Canyon Speedmax. I’ve looked at the Argon, Felt, BMC and a couple others.
I know a lot of people might argue why that’s wrong, but I find whenever I’m riding, I’m always “scooching” forward. It’s how I feel I can put the most power into my crank. Now, to give you some background, I’m on the shorter side at 5’4" and I run what should be a longer crank arm than suggested. But I also prefer a cadence on the slower side of the tempo. I can’t really tell you what that is as I have never measured my pace, but I figure it’s somewhere around 60. I feel comfortable there as that seems to be the cadence in which I can maintain putting good power into the bike. I have 165mm arms on the Shiv and I’m quite happy with that, and I have 170s on my P2 and honestly can’t tell a difference. I know most would suggest I go to a shorter crank and I’ve tried 150s and absolutely hated it. It felt I needed to spin uncomfortably fast to try and maintain speed. In my brief (3 week) experiment with 150mm cranks, I dropped 1.5-2mph average pace over the same routes and felt I was working a lot harder.
Am I just the odd duck that likes such a forward position? Are there others out there like me that prefer that nose heavy position?
Not like it really matters as I’m not even remotely in the market for yet another tri bike. But it is something I’m curious about.
I shall repeat here what I’ve told others - you really need to post a profile picture of you on the bike, wearing the helmet you race in.
“A picture is worth a thousand words!” - it certainly has worked very well over at Facebook’s Time Trial Positions group, and now it’s much easier to post pictures here with the Forum upgrade.
EDIT: IMHO they should have made more noise about this - I have personally experimented successfully with “drag-n-drop” jpegs of over 8 MB. This is a HUGE improvement over the old Forum’s engine.
I don’t have a really good profile pic I can post. I am getting ready to buy a picture package from the Santa Barbara triathlon, and several of those photos are kinda profile, but not dead on from the side. To do that, I would need to set up here at the house and rig it some how so I can take the pic myself.
And on that note, I did purchase, receive and just installed my new forward aero seat post. As mounted, it gives me at least one full inch more forward. Going for a 30-ish mile ride tomorrow to check my fit.
You know, the thing is I’ve seen one or two bikes set up the way I’m thinking. Basically where the seat post is nearly vertical, if not even a little forward of the BB. That may sound peculiar to many but just think about the position of a runner the first few meters out of the starting block when they’re really putting power down. There is a distinct angle forward from the point of contact, through the hips, up to the shoulders. I’m looking for something similar, at least from the point of contact up to the hips. But as I said above, I know I’m an odd duck so I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if just me and two other people in the world actually preferred this!
The Canyon Speedmax has a 80.5 deg seat angle (vs. 77 for the Shiv Tri), plus a seatpost that has a bit more forward adjustability. Not sure if that is the steepest, but a lot more than you have now.
That being said, there are lots of reasons you may be sliding forward on your saddle: saddle too high, front end too low, front end too long, etc. etc. Before investing in a frame (and possibly the wrong one), get a good fit from a highly experienced fitter who has lots of experience with triathletes. Heck, you could fly to the UK and have Matt Bontrill fit you for less than the cost of a new frame (not that you need to go that far or spend that much).
Quintana Roo’s seatposts have an adjustable angle between 77 and 83 degrees. You could slam the saddle itself all the way forward on top of that as well.
The 2nd gen Speed Concept with the seatpost flipped offers a pretty forward seat position.
I could slide the seat even more forward on the rails, but I’m already running out of real estate here when it comes to reach. It’s all maxed out. Good enough for me though.
I had the same feeling for a long time. I always wanted to get farther forward. For me, I believe it was because of a closed hip angle and scrunched upper body. Sliding forward would help my quad comfort and also opening up my chest so it felt easier to breath.
I ended up getting a fit and he brought me as far forward as my bike would go (or at least very close) and then I went with 150mm cranks (I am 5’9"). I few months ago I bought a new-to-me P3. From there I started pushing out my arms (110mm stem and pads as far forward as my basebar allows) and I’m still on the very front edge of my pads. This has been a very big improvement. I do have another basebar I want to put on which will give me a bit more reach/allow my arms to rest in the middle of my pads.
All of this to ask, what are you feeling when you push forward? Can you tell why you feel better? Do you feel more relaxed in your upper body, lower body? I do find it a bit odd that you have so much trouble with cadence and short cranks. If you find yourself spinning too much why don’t you just shift to a harder gear? Do you find yourself always stuck between gears where one you spin too much and another you grind too much? I do know that feeling but I think that could be sorted with a change in gearing that best suites your needs.
I like that Trek! And I think that’s much closer to what I want, especially since there is still some travel left on the seat rails. Now if I could find one lightly used in my size…
Ya, that’s how I feel on my bikes. I always seem to skooch forward on the nose of the saddle because I feel like I can get more power into the crank. But then that puts too much pressure on my squishy bits and I move back and lose some of that power.
Totally agree with your first paragraph. Opens up the hips, feels less scrunchy and easier to breathe.
I did have a fit here in town from a supposedly reputable fitter but it felt like a gigantic waste of time and money. The only change suggested was the shorter cranks, which I already planned on. But I also think that individual fitter was just not very good, so now I’m hesitant to spend any more money on a fit after that experience.
As for the short cranks, I tried 150mm cranks on a Ridley I have and I really did not like it at all. as for shifting into a higher gear, that didn’t reallly work for me. The way I describe it is I would spin faster than what I was comfortable but I was actually going slower than normal. When I shift to higher gear, I lost all my leverage and would slow down. So then I would shift back down to a lower gear and have to speed up my cadence, which was faster than what I was comfortable with, and so on and so forth.
The thing with me is I have short but strong legs that just aren’t comfortable moving that fast. So it’s far more comfortable for me to spin a slower cadence and apply the force to a longer lever (crank) than to try and spin really fast on a shorter crank. Given I like a longer crank, I like my hips to be more forward so it opens up that hip angle more.
I find it quite interesting that the vast majority have their saddles pushed all the way forward. I have tried that in the past and I could never get it to work for me. After my first bike fit my saddle ended up being pulled back so it is 50mm back from the bottom bracket and an effective seat angle of 76 degrees. Even after my second bike fit I have the same saddle position with a shorter crank arm and a longer pad reach. Even after swapping saddles from an ISM PN 3.0 to a Gebiomized Stride I am still sat quite far back from the center of the bottom bracket.
I did find myself pushing my body further back on the saddle going from 170mm to 165mm cranks and think I would do the same if I was to drop down to an even shorter crank.
I am curious how many people go in the opposite direction and sit quite far back from the center of the bottom bracket.
I know that feeling. If you have a smart trainer, did you try riding a workout in ERG so you could select your own cadence with the shorter cranks? Then you can test the hip angle theory a bit better while still maintaining your selected cadence. If that does work then I think you should be able to get enough help here with gearing changes to get your cadence right.
