Your ankle is incredibly plantarflexed in that picture, and the pedal is again not at the furthest point relative to the saddle.
This is classic confirmation bias at work. All of us are just trying to help - you asked for that help. But you will not listen to anybody who doesn’t support your preconceived belief. You probably won’t even listen to this, since it goes against your belief that you don’t have confirmation bias.
Good luck to you - I’m done trying to help.
Right… I had already lowered my seatheight to test. But ok…
It’s the classic your seat is too high in the video. You could also move forward a touch on the saddle but I’d also want you to move your contact points forward as well to keep everything the same. You could also raise the front end by 1cm. I’d bet a few dollars that would not have an impact on CdA.
Lower the seat 2-2.5cm and see how that feels. If you’re not digging it go up by 5mm and see how that feels at. Shoot more video at each increment and see what that does to your plantar flexion and knee angle.
Some people just ride with some amount of plantar flexion and that’s ok except when it’s due to trying to protect the legs due to saddle height.
It always seems to get a bit confrontational here, and without trying to get in the mix I think you’ve got a quandary - I’m pretty sure everyone here will want to see that ankle flex at the bottom of the pedal stroke disappear, but you’re not looking to make major changes.
In your position I’d contact the team you did the aero testing with and ask how you ended up with such a high saddle, maybe there’s a reason for it, I don’t know we’re remote Internet people and all we know is in your photo. Might be worth thinking how long you’ve been training in that position any and injuries, problems in swimming and running that might be linked - or you might be absolutely fine, not everyone has to be the same.
If you’re running this high seat position due to hip impingement at top of stroke I would suggest changing to short cranks, while keeping seat height unchanged. 165mm are not short enough for triathlon setups in many cases. Many people ride 155 or 160s for triathlon. Otherwise, you should lower the seat and raise the front end with what you’re riding now.
I accidently deleted my own Post, but since the “seat height” issue continues, here it is.
There are a bazillion ways for setting seat height. In general, IMHO, the easiest is looking at your legs as you are climbing a hill hard, standing out of the saddle. For most people, this is the position that produces the most power, and automatically accounts for the cleat position on your shoe. Stop pedaling with one of your feet at the bottom of the pedal stroke, and while trying to hold the same knee and ankle bends, sit back down. If you have to raise yourself significantly to sit, your saddle is probably too high. For you specifically, I’d be surprised if you have that amount of ankle extension when you are climbing while standing.
As you raise your saddle too high, two things happen. 1) You can not produce power at the bottom of the pedal stroke - the “scrapping mud off the bottom of your shoe” action which comes into play when climbing while sitting and 2) you become less aerodynamic. Your legs when fully extended look like a large cylinder moving vertically through the air - about the worst aero shape there is - and you have two of them!
You will often hear that it is better to have the saddle too low than too high. Look at the crank arm when it is at the bottom of the pedal stroke. At that point, you can push straight down with a 1000 pounds of force and nothing will happen!
Replying to the OP with some general thoughts. Let’s remember Slowtwitch is the home of dynamic fitting, while the advice to “raise your saddle by the amount you shorten your crank” is as static as it comes. It is very common for riders, especially shorter riders, to run too much saddle height as an instinctive response to cranks that they don’t consciously recognize as too long. Just one example of everything on a bike affecting everything else, but if we are going to do dynamic bike fitting, then let’s do it.
And as fredly sorta said, let’s also stop looking at knee extension or anything else in isolation. It’s the overall pedal stroke, ALL the angles, ranges of motion, maxes and mins, stability, and ability to produce efficient power.
co-sign, emphatically.
Photographer Alexandre Bettoschi posted a clever composite picture on the Facebook “Time Trial Positions” group that clearly illustrates the huge variation in riding styles. The rider in the lower right will certainly have an easy T2 - he’s already “running”, just happens to be on a bike!
So help me out with this (not directed specifically at you, just in general). Do we want to make our riding more like our running for easier transitions and maybe better training carryover? Or do we want to make our riding less like our running in order to leave everything involved in the run relatively fresh?
I’ve heard it argued both ways, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone try to reconcile the two lines of thought.
I THINK the answer to this is “running is running, cycling is cycling” one is weight bearing one is not. It makes zero difference what you do on the bike relative to run and run relative to bike other than cardio benefits carry over.
Because ITU athletes run just fine immediately off a road biking position (generally slack and sitting back) and immediately are running sub 3 min kms, and Ironman guys off positions that are more like running don’t run as fast off the bike (they are just more tired).
We went through this discussion when us triathletes were first putting on flipped seat posts on road bikes when aero bars from Scott and Profile showed up. First step was to slap on the bars and then our hip angles were so compressed, we were always nose riding to open things up and shorten reach, then we just flipped seat posts and people noticed their first few steps running were easier off forward position (but I believe it has nothing to do with forward seat position just more open hip angle). But literally after 100m, you’re running properly. It’s just mainly the brain tuning to a new position but pretty soon the weight bearing aspect of running is the majority load to overcome, not your body’s old positon (from the bike).
That’s my observation. Here is a picture of Mark Allen on his Kestrel 4000 rebranded Schwinn, I believe from Kona 1990 (edit: it is from 1989 ironwar)
with the flipped seat post to get forward. The Kestrel 4000 was a road bike geometry with 73 degree head and seat tube so it had to be modified to get into a rideable aero position
Ok, so I lowered my seat by 1,5cm. And this is the result. Foot is more horizontal than previously. Turbo set tomorrow, let’s see how much more powerful I am 
The athlete riding the Diamondback looks comfortable enough
You still look a bit on the high side of the spectrum to me.
Saddle is still too high.
Still Way too high to my eyes
And the power increase often doesn’t come on dramatically as soon as you make a change
This is much better, and you might be just one of the few that ride a higher saddle hight like myself. If i go lower then my height, which for a lot would be considered high, it feels very uncomfortable. And this is already 15 mm lower then what it used to be but that was really too high like your previous height. But, like you, had no trouble, injury or whatever, actually felt comfortable. It just gave me tight glutes during races, not while training just with racing.
Jeroen
Thanks, great explanation. Loved the history.
Compared to the triathletes, who were “ahead of the game” in Oct 1989 (the picture I posted of Mark Allen above), in July 1989, road cyclists were just cluing in. Below is a pic of Lemond during his TdF winning campaign in 89 with closed off hips.
I believe Greg Lemond showed up to ride in a relay leg in World’s Toughest Triathlon in South Lake Tahoe California around 1987 or 1988 (before his hunting accident), @skid (Scott Molina) was racing the full IM distance at altitude and showed up with Scott DH bars. Molina won but Lemond got exposed to aerobars.
You can see Greg’s position in this TT in the TdF. It is basically a roadie position with him folded over to get to his aeropads. Lemond had a really long femur and short tibia so he could deal with this position on a short TT’s but generally to run fast you have balanced femur to tibia ratio (or really fast runners often have really long tibias) and the longer the tibia it will inherently compress the hip angle, so most of us can’t ride aerobars like Lemond.
In the image I posted above, athletes like Mark Allen had it figured out. Minus the forearms pointed upwards, you can see he pretty well already has a perfect modern aero position with an open enough hip angle that he could run 2:39 off the bike in Kona 89.
On Lemond getting exposed to aerobars via triathletes at WTT, I found a 12 year old thread here just before IM tahoe kicked off:
