I amnew to the tri world and trying to grasp what seat angle is all about? Do I want to be steep or flat?
BD
You want to get with a bike shop that specializes in fitting athletes for triathlon. They will determine what position is best for you. Generally speaking, shallow seat angles are easier for newbies to ride comfortably in, but aren’t as effeciant or fast. Steep angles are more aggressive, but many newbies find it hard to ride in this position.
there is much to read about the subject at www.slowtwitch.com
Look under tri bike fit.
If you think about the way you ride a road bike then rotate the whole body forward about the bottom bracket, that is the “steep” position. It’s basically a way of getting you down low in the front while maintaining the angle between your upper and lower body.
What ever you do - DONT ask Mjuric…
(sorry Matt, it was there)
Another good place with lots of info: http://www.fitwerx.com/NewFiles/TechCenter.html
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seat angle = (+/- dependant upon) femur length.
If you’re an inexperienced cyclist get a road bike first. A tri bike is an ill handling beast and not as versatile.
Tom’s article explains this quite well:
I believe it was Beavis who once said, “The angle of the dangle is inversely proportionate to the heat of the meat.”
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WHOA! It’s NOT seat angle, it’s SEAT TUBE angle. Your seat should be pretty flat, no matter what seat TUBE angle you ride. A steeper seat TUBE angle is common with Tri-bikes. A slacker seat TUBE angle is what road cyclists ride, and those that are restricted in their time trial positions by the USCF and others. Basically, a steeper seat tube angle allows you to get lower in front, which is more aerodynamic, AND, it seems most people run better off of steep seat TUBE angled bikes.
“seat angle = (+/- dependant upon) femur length”
true. but less true when considering steeper angles, as the femur is less horizontal at TDC @ steeper angles, and therefore less a determiner of saddle setback.
to all I want to say just one thing: May your training reward you. 'Pope Dan Empfield"
(I actually had a knickname in Germany if you can believe that. hellriegel = “hellride” zack = “the chancellor” empfield = “the pabst” —not the beer, the pope.)
and no, you cynical fuckers, i didn’t give it to myself. i don’t exactly remember know how that name came about.
Steep angled tri-bikes do not have to be very poor handling bikes. Many of them are because of poor designs that put your weight too far forward, so they have a bad reputation. I owned first a Scott and then a Cervelo and both were very scary bikes to ride on any kind of technical downhill. In fairness to both bikes, they both had really long top tubes that required me to use a forward seat post to compensate. That put me high up and forward.
I’m sure there are others good bikes out there, but so far my Yaqui that I bought has been an incredible all around bike to ride. On my previous bikes I would have been scared to ride twisting switchbacks, especially if there were any crosswinds. Now I bomb down anything and everything with abandon and have nary a problem.
It is a function of the slack head tube combine with a 50mm rake fork that puts the front wheel out farther in front of me and better distributes my weight, even though I ride around 80 degrees relative seat angle.
Chad
So Dan… I’ve had good fucks, bad fucks, wild fucks, lazy fucks, crazy fucks, slow fucks, blow-fucks, and no fucks, but never a cynical fuck. Are they any good?
“but never a cynical fuck. Are they any good?”
they’re exactly like grunge fucks. except different.
seat angle = (+/- dependant upon) femur length.
Sorry, I’ve just noticed I somehow managed to screw up my post above!
What I meant to say was, could someone please explain why seat angle should be ‘+/- dependant on femur length’, and where do you measure the femur from/to, and I guess it’s in relation to the lower leg? if not what is long or short for femur length?
I’m relatively new to this, so any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Dave
Cerveloguy…there you go again my friend. Nothing wrong with a newbie riding a tri bike as long as it is set up well. I’d rather see a newbie riding a 78 degree tri bike than the same person riding a road bike with the seat jacked forward 2 inches to get it up to 78 degree and induce major twitchy handling. My tribike handles just as well as my road bike. I think the tri bike frame builders would have a beef with your blanket statement that their bikes handle like beasts 
To the original poster, there is lots of nice info on the bike fitting section on this website. Please read up there
Dev
There’s a reason why road racers ride slack angled road bikes and not tri bikes (except on TT’s.) That reason is that they handle better.
You may disagree, but I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s best to learn how to ride a bike a bit before racing one.
What’s happening in tris is that a lot of newbies with limited cycling experience are jumping right from that $300. Canadian Tire mountain bike to a tri bike with no intermediate step in between. Sure some of them can be very fast, but have limited experience in situations with other riders around them. I’m noticing at the tris last year we’re seeing more and more drafting (even group situations) with people on aerobars. I feel reasonably secure in a pack of roadies but not with a bunch of triathletes on aerobars in a non drafting race. Trigeeks don’t have a great reputation as great bike handlers but it’s one they’ve earned.
BTW, Ottawa was the worst example. The marshalling on the bike course last year was almost non existant and there was a lot of drafting including a number of groups drafting. I know this for a fact because I got caught in a group of eight riders (I counted them) who drafted about 15km before they broke up. Tried to break away but got swallowed back up so I dropped behind them the legal distance and followed. Eventually the draft broke up on it’s own but there was no excuse for this in a non drafting race.
Now that you’re doing an IM in Ottawa I hope the organizers will take draft busting a lot more serious. It’s a potentially dangerous course since it’s 12 loops with so many races going on at the same time and with such a range of rider skills and speeds. You’ve got everthing from roadie TT racers as part of a team to people on hybrids in the “try a tri” and everything in between all on that course at the same time. The turn arounds are also a problem because traffic can get severely bunched up. My wife had somebody run into the back of her last year at a turn around in heavy traffic. Fortunately nobody was injured. Other than that I like the course since there’s no car traffic, but more effort needs to be done to catch the drafters.
Sorry to put this up again, but I’ve searched a lot of info on bikefit and can’t really find the answer to my question I posted earlier.
‘Could someone please explain why seat angle should be ‘+/- dependant on femur length’, and where do you measure the femur from/to, and I guess it’s in relation to the lower leg? if not what is long or short for femur length?’
I’m relatively new to this, so any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Dave
Do you mean a grudge fuck? Having had some of those, I wonder how that might compare to a gruNge fuck - is that like fucking a garbage can? Or more of a Courtney Love kind of thing?
Dave, measure your femur this way. Sit on your bike and pedal for a while. Get someone to put a dot (of paper, or whatever) on the spot on your hip that is stationary when you pedal. Put another dot on spot on the side of your knee (near the head of your fibula) that doesn’t move when you bend and extend your leg while the thigh is being held horizontal to the ground. That is one way to measure your femur length. Lower leg length is from your knee spot to the floor (obviously, it includes your foot). You can also measure from the top of a book spine snugged up in your crotch to that spot on your knee for “Upper leg length”, it’s not really femur length. Some fitters may want to measure lower leg from that knee spot to the distal tip of your lateral maleolus…or the center of your maleolus. This is what I mean when I say one fitter’s measurements may vary significantly from the numbers another fitter gets…they don’t all measure the same spots.
As far as femur length to steepness, I’m not sure there is a direct connection, it might be more due to neuromuscular makeup than skeletal measurements…like I said, I don’t know for sure. Hope this helps.