hello and welcome to another video today's video is on saddle height
what can go wrong if your saddle's too high what can go wrong if your
saddle's too low and how to find the optimum position for it this is bike fit tuesdays
what is that
what is that what no you know what i'm talking about welcome to moffett tuesdays
so james am i right in saying that saddle height is one of the most important factors when it comes
to being comfortable on the bike and avoiding issues it's the most important one isn't it
it's we can relate like 99 cycling ailments to excessive saddle height
cellulitis is basically a bouncing act between uh extending the leg optimally so you utilize the
extensors causing the glutes through the bottom of the stroke but also not impinging the hips
through the top of the stroke so when you have the saddle too low and something we're starting to
see in here is if the saddle's too low it stops to impinge the hips you've got a rider that is
particularly restricted in one hit than tubber really quite common uh excessive impingement one
hit can lead to listening to one side so that's kind of one of those it's a hip pain i suspect
could be uh potentially uh an ailment as a result of the insufficient cell height i have to say
90 percent of the men that i have men that are coming through here have this other way too
high so having someone who's got ourselves too low is actually really quite uncommon based on
you know how we like our bikes to look uh bike fitting techniques all of this kind of stuff
if it starts to could lead to overutilization of the quadriceps uh it could lead to excessive
loading of the knee joint uh that to be honest with you that skin tag you could potentially
end up with something like chondromalacia which is a softening of the patella ah
hip impingement that's and potentially uh pelvic asymmetry you sit off to one side obviously you
get a reduction in power output as well but you to be honest with you if if your saddle height is set
sub optimally whether it's too high or too low you'll you'll get a you'll get a dysfunctional
power output anyway so you won't be able to drive enough power racial saddle height now
is like six centimeters too low quite often results in a rider uh having to dorsiflex their
foot as a means of making up the uh extension in the leg so just your your you aren't doing
in this case besides waiting it already hurts okay right so what we're doing is we end up with a lot
of low deflection through the top of the knee so anterior knee pain can often ensue if cells do
low you end up overusing the quads impinging the hips and excessively loading the knees
this is usually white where it goes just the iron real be in my body about salahi high
most bike fitters set people saddle's too high most physios set people settled too high
most consumers set people's saddles too high the most common saddle height reduction that i
make in here and i'm talking to do this every day is about 20 mil as a result of that most people
actually end up on the wrong side bike rachel here is riding a bike that's the same size as my bike
the single most common issue that excessive saddle hike generates or creates is pelvic
asymmetry it's a rider's need to lift to one side as a result of the excess of several height
most people sit off the right hand side uh it's a sacrificial act of sacrificing the
left leg for the right leg on the ground most people are right side dominant as a result
most knee pain when it occurs tends to occur in the left knee most people get saddle sores on the
left side if your right hand if your hand goes to sleep it's usually your right hand if your
feet go to sleep using the right foot starts on the outside of the foot and creeps across
i guess what we don't talk about in bike fitting bike pit 101 when people
learned of the bike because we don't talk about how rider posturally interacts with the bicycle
essentially as you sit off to one side it creates an asymmetrical interaction with the bicycle now
human being's an asymmetrical creature naturally but you then lash to a very symmetrical piece
of equipment and it's that poor interaction that tends to cause issues uh so one way of potentially
understanding with these cells too high uh might be that you the need to point the toe through
the bottom of the stroke in this video you can see we've actually set rate of saddle very very
high to give you a uh a better uh understanding of what an excessive saddle height looks like
you can see there's quite a lot of pointing through the bottom of the stroke but actually
uh one of the most one things we try to look for is quality of motion you see you can see there's a
sort of staccato pedaling dynamic this rachel's snatching through the bottom of the stroke and
that's one of the things that we're looking for in a pedaling dynamics for it to be smooth and fluid
rather than it just being stampy and choppy in summary excessive saddle height causes knee pain
foot pain genital problems any form of saddle issues uh hand pain neck and shoulder issues am i
making my point here all right it's it's the devil you're almost always better too low than too high
so i'm sure you guys click this video because you actually want to find out how to set your
own saddle height here's how well honestly that that that's that's generally a pretty
good starting point uh i think it would probably start very very low and build it up over time i
mean what we're looking for is smoothness through the bottom of the stroke you don't
want to be reaching through the bottom of the stroke it should be a smooth controlled movement
rather than you know just a you know a terminal extension of the leg uh but like i said i would
probably if you're having any of the issues that you've that we've encountered that we've
listed in excessive saddle height instinctively what i would do is probably drop it by 30 mil
quite a lot and then build it up slowly from there uh but i i guess fundamentally the problem is that
there isn't a formulaic way of determining salt height uh you know so for example the inseam rule
there's a there are a number of formulas for for setting saddle height based on inseam the
problem with that doesn't take into consideration a rider's feet so if you're an individual a short
individual with very large feet they're going to need a higher saddle height than the same
height individual same inseam with smaller feet you have to you have to take into consideration
the size of the foot as well uh i i really feel like there isn't really a formulaic way of doing
it there's been a belief that saddle heights all about millimeter perfection so first and foremost
you're taller in the morning when you wake up and when you go to bed at night
so scrutinizing over millimeters is a complete waste of time secondly uh
three millimeter for example reduction in saddle satellite is the difference between sitting here
and sitting here what tends to happen when you make small changes to saddle height are that it
changes your interaction with the saddle rather than necessarily changing your biomechanics uh
and that's kind of one of the things that we actually uh quite often find is that if
if you riders very often gravitate to the nose of the saddle as a means of reducing saddle
height on the ground that the nose is closer to the bottom bracket than the tail is so we're
normally trying to set this saddle height based on the rider's ability to sit in the back of it
uh to your point yes absolutely there is a range uh i feel like that range how big that range is is
dependent on the functionality of the individual i personally can run my saddle sort of 10 mil
either way of where i've set it without really any issues so yeah i think that's that's the
main thing quite often riders i'm not saying that people that you can't tell a difference
in three millimeters quite often riders do have the saddle set too high they drop it three mil
and it provides relief mostly on the grounds that the position is cracked in the first place
the south way too high as a result you notice small incremental changes i have become accustomed
to making very large changes so we've just done a fit uh this morning with with rachel
i have reduced to reach by five centimeters uh and the saddle heights come down by about 15 mil
so you know this is a game of inches not going millimeters bike fittings hidden behind that
myth for way too long uh human beings are very very good at absorbing dysfunction
so uh and you know the more function of the rider the better they are absorbing that dysfunction
that's why lawrence can run his saddle like 10 centimeters that's why laurence's saddle is
so high i'm surprised he can't see it when he opens his mouth yet he doesn't get any issues
so it's been quite a big trend at the moment of people running their saddles super low
because of aero gains it often tests faster to be super low down on the bike um so there's a lot of
riders in the pro peloton super low center heights like nairo quintana for example people might want
to try copying that what do you think about that i personally don't believe in running the saddle
much much lower in the name of aerodynamic gains on the grounds that again you're going to start
adding to all the issues that potentially thrown up by insufficient satellite like excessively
loading the knee so i think you know there are potentially aerodynamic gains that can be had from
lowering i actually very often find myself lowering the entire rider so i drop the front
end 20 mil but as a result because there's no longer all this tension being held on them they
can tolerate more handlebar drop again today with rachel she came in here with three centimeters of
handlebar drop she's leaving with five and a half so almost double the amount of handlebar drop as a
result of the saddle being lower and the reach being produced lowering everything just in the
name of aerodynamics i would say it's foolish because you have it's multifaceted you have to
think about the biomechanics of the rider they've got to be able to get over the top of the stroke
you don't want to be pinching the hips you don't want to be loading the knees there will come a
point where the biomechanics will outweigh the aerodynamic gains it's all well and good being
aerodynamic but if you can't utilize your muscles properly then you're pissing into the wind i
suppose it all depends on the length of the event and there's a huge multitude of factors yeah it is
too many factors can i also add if you really want to get your saddle lower move your cleats further
back frankly i i find myself taking cleats as far back as they can but based on the way the bicycle
shoes are designed anyway i find myself taking the cleats as far back on the shoe as they'll go
almost always on the ground that a lot of people have unstable feet and tends to improve things
to no end improve saddle interaction all this kind of stuff but yes absolutely if you move the
cleat further back you effectively increase the reach to the pedal so in turn you can you need
to reduce the saddle height accordingly so that concludes the episode of bite fit tuesdays today
please like subscribe leave a comment down below if you have any questions and we'll do our best to
get back to you equally there's a link down below if you want some more information about james's
shop and to book a fit if you're in london or if you want to fly here thank you rachel
thanks pickle your massive input into this video being so helpful see you soon