Ok I don’t proclaim to have owned many bikes and seatposts, but having recently purchased a Soloist Carbon SLC SL and fitted it with an Selle SMP Carbon saddle, I have had a bugger of a time trimming the seat angle.
I can only get an allen key into the rear screw. The front screw is fixed at the base and has like a grooved nut at the top. THing is, this grooved nut really doesn’t want to budge easily and if I didn’t have the full cut out in the SMP saddle I have no idea how one would get in there. Anyway even fully loosening off the rear screw the front is not easy to free up and the saddle doesn’t seem to be easy to adjust.
Is there some ‘trick’ I’m missing? Surely it must be easier than this…
No real trick to it, the reality is that it’s just simply a pain in the butt.
Once you get the seat rails in there, you need to have the rear screw loose enough that you can turn the nut in the front. Then of course when you tighten up the rear screw, it changes the angle from what you set using the nut. It becomes kind of a guessing game of loosing, tightening, tightening, check angle, then repeat until you accidentally arrive at the seat angle that you’re looking for.
Lucky you. You just happen to have stumbled upon the ABOLUTE WORST SADDLE CLAMP DESIGN IN THE HISTORY OF CYCLING. I love everything else about my Cervelos, but the ones that have that saddle clamp … just horrendous. I know that design has been retired, but I wish they’d do something retroactive for those of us who still own and ride the older models and have to contend with this ridiculous thing.
The only thing I can suggest to help you … certain saddles have more clearance between the rails and the top part of the saddle which can allow you to get some sort of tool in there to deal with the nut. If you can find one like that to work for you, great. But low-profile saddles leave no room to reach that nut. I use needle-nose pliers and it’s still a royal pain.
Maybe I’m the only one, but I found the seat post head fairly ingenious… The hex head screw sets the clamping force on the seat rails. The thumb screw sets the seat angle… period. The thumb screw was not meant to have a lot of torque applied to it, which is why they put the knurled knob on the top. So if you want to adjust the seat angle, you loosen up the hex head screw until the thumb screw turns easily. I haven’t done the math (and probably won’t) to figure out how many degrees of seat angle 1 turn of the thumb screw is, but it seems like 1/2 turn is like 2-3 degrees. The genius part is that as long as you don’t change the setting on the thumb screw, the seat angle will be the same when you re-torque the hex head screw. So you don’t have to break out your plumb bob and protractor to reset the seat angle just to move the seat back a few millimeters.
So, in short, loosen the hex head a lot, push down on the nose of the saddle to take all the tension off the thumb screw, make small changes to the thumb screw, then retorque the hex head. Works great for me on my P2SL.
Good news! For those of us who ride older Cervelo’s (I ride a 2005 P3) there’s a new seat clamp available. The old one with the thumb screw has been retired (as stated above) and the new one is much more low-profile with an allen-key for the angle adjustment. I bought a new seat clamp a month ago because I wanted to use 2 seats on my P3 and was suprised to find the design has changed. It’s much easier to adjust, and fits my saddle that doesn’t have the cutout in it. Get yours from your local Cervelo dealer, or online…it’s worth it.
another vote for actually liking the design. I will admit, it took me two years to figure it out, but now I love it. loosen the rear bolt, gently adjust the front screw, then tighten rear bolt. no problems. And it seems that you have just a little bit of wiggle room between tight enough and very tight on the bolt, which allows you a tad of fudge room on how you set the front screw (or allows you to make very slight changes on the fly). I guess a lovely seatpost like a Thomson would allow the same option, but I’m actually pretty happy now that I have things worked out.
Now if only I could get rid of all the scratches from cranking the screw with needle nose pliers before I figured the system out…
No real trick to it, the reality is that it’s just simply a pain in the butt.
Once you get the seat rails in there, you need to have the rear screw loose enough that you can turn the nut in the front. Then of course when you tighten up the rear screw, it changes the angle from what you set using the nut. It becomes kind of a guessing game of loosing, tightening, tightening, check angle, then repeat until you accidentally arrive at the seat angle that you’re looking for.
This is exactly how I do it. Not fun.
“I know that design has been retired, but I wish they’d do something retroactive for those of us who still own and ride the older models and have to contend with this ridiculous thing.”
Interesting … considering I just purchased a 2008 SLC SL in May and that’s what came with it!!
I guess I’ll try some of the good tips posted here.
“I know that design has been retired, but I wish they’d do something retroactive for those of us who still own and ride the older models and have to contend with this ridiculous thing.”
Interesting … considering I just purchased a 2008 SLC SL in May and that’s what came with it!!
I guess I’ll try some of the good tips posted here.
Thanks people.
Mike
Ditto, I have a two month old 08 SLC and it has the same clamp. Heck, I even bought a brand new two position post to go with it and once again, same clamp with thumb screw on front.