welcome to yet another episode of bike trip tuesdays there's been a lot of tuesdays
recently james today's episode is about saddle for and aft often referred to as saddle layback
or saddle setback saddle for an aft what is it very simple really isn't it it's the horizontal
placement of the saddle in space we use the bottom bracket as a as a reference point so
the the four raft is usually measured in centimeters uh and it's a basically the
the difference between the nose of the saddle and a vertical line drawn up
through the bottom bracket it refers to exactly basically where the saddle is placed in space
this is an element of some setback that i find more problematic than than anything else it is
having it too far forward there are a number of reasons why riders run the saddle too far
forward the most common one i tend to find is that the the reach is too long to the bike and as a
result so the rider pushes the saddle forward uh in order to reduce the reach of the bike
uh don't do that essentially what happens is when you run the saddle too far forward
it disrupts center of mass it disrupts your weight distribution on the bicycle
and this is essentially how i use uh it's one of the ways i use uh saddle setback in in bike
fitting so when you run the saddle further forward all you're going to do or a lot of the time you're
going to transfer all of the weight into the front of the bicycle so quite often riders end up with
numb hands neck and shoulder issues that kind of stuff it's very popular in racing circles to run
the saddle very far forward as a means of opening up the hips there are a lot
of other ways of opening up the hips reducing crank legs reducing reach uh increasing stance
uh so so yeah generally speaking i i i would i would discourage anyone from from pushing the
saddle really far forward as a means of reducing the ridge try and do it at the front end you've
run out of ways to to reduce at the front end it's probably an indication your bike's too big
so the far less common issue that i encounter is is the salomon too far back uh more often than
not it's usually as a result of the saddle simply having slipped in the seat post i think the only
real issue with with having the saddle too far back well there are a couple of issues first
and foremost it has the potential to increase the reach uh quite dramatically so if this valve has
slammed really far back on the rails it will increase the reach a lot but furthermore
it also intends to it tends to impinge the hips which can uh make it more difficult for rod to
get over the top of the pedal strike particularly uh individuals who are a little bit tight through
the hips so i'm talking about individuals who said desks a lot of time uh people sort of
above the age of 35 tend to be slightly tighter in their hips i guess it depends on on your on your
lifestyle and your your general physiology but uh that's that's the major issue really of having the
saddle too far back it can actually impact your pedaling dynamic and your pedaling efficiency
i think the whole concept of opening up the hips is it's typically been applied
to racing cyclists and race bikes uh it's a means or it tends to improve hip function so going back
to what we're talking about when the saddle's too far back it tends to make life more difficult for
to get over the top of the pedal stroke running further forward does generally improve hip
function it tends to open the hips up uh what that means is that your pedaling efficiency can improve
i think why it's important to us it's important to consider that you you don't want to be
opening up the hips at the expense of uh weight distribution and furthermore uh there are a
number of other ways of opening up the hips as i explained earlier on there are a number of ways
of overcoming physiological challenges in bike fitting uh and i think you're just just slamming
the sound really far forward as a means of opening up the hips i i kind of feel like
has it tends to have ramifications elsewhere it's also worth noting that when you change the saddle
for off it influences saddle height so the further forward if you run the saddle further forward you
have to raise the saddle height uh if you run further back you tend to have to lower a little
bit it's it's a ratio roughly at one to three when you run this out of the forward you probably need
to raise a little bit when you run when you run it further back you'll probably need to drop it
a little bit so there's a few videos online of people explaining how to set your saddle before
and aft using a method where they dangle a plumb line from your knee what's that all about and does
it work is there a formulaic way to set it so the cops method cops's uh near the pedal spindle is is
something derived from the 1970s and i think if i it basically uh refers to
you you drop a plumb line off of the off of a certain area of the knee there can be there
are a number of different uh landmarks that have been used over the years and at a certain point
in the pedal stroke uh you it should dissect the pedal axle and and i guess the problem with this
is it doesn't take into consideration uh rider physiology uh furthermore there are a number of
uh styles of bicycle that will that won't really allow for cops so if you think about triathlon
bike for example where the saddle is comparatively much much further forward uh the idea being
to open up the hips but also to make the pedaling motion a bit more cyclic like uh like running
so it's less of a less of a shock moving into the run from from from the right from the road
from from the bike furthermore you know you you couldn't apply to something like a recumbent bike
so so yeah i feel it's more more kind of generalization rule of thumb than anything else
uh and it's not something i have used furthermore if a bike fitter is using that in your bike fit
run away so i'm not going to say give a surefire way of saying it yourself because unfortunately
there are far too many uh variables involved in setting saddle setback but what i want to do is
get across some of the things that you need to take into consideration so first and foremost
uh i i would probably start with this and one thing i do want to iterate actually is that saddle
setback is something that i find myself not really changing unless the needs of the rider dictated
um so what's a good a good starting point well the best starting point really with the saddle
is to write a slap bang in the middle of the rails all right start start from there um on the grounds
that if you run sorry if you run a saddle very far forward on the rails it does a couple of things
firstly it can you can put quite a lot of strain through the rails and and when you sit on it
the saddle will actually slightly dip nose down furthermore if you have it on the back of the
rails when you sit on it this other will kind of point those up you you have you run the risk of
basically bending the saddle rail so you know a lot of saddles have a uh most southern rails have
a limit to where you can set them i personally would almost always try to aim to visit for the
middle of that limit as a starting point so we need to take in so sometimes you need to
think about the individual so individuals with long torsos so people like me i'm a bit like
a sausage dog very short legs are very long back tend to need more saddle setback individuals with
similar the same needs are individually larger body mass rugby players individuals with large
heads well endowed women basically all of these individuals are going to need more silent setback
to offload that weight there tends to be the need for an accompaniment of reduced reach and
reduce handlebar drop as well to offload that weight in contrast to that a a particularly
problematic shape and historically this has been aimed at female cyclists but actually
there are quite a lot of men with this with this trait is individuals with very short torso and
longer legs now this is an individual that is predisposed to being stretched out on a bicycle
and i find that sort of uh build so you've got a short torso long leg tends to need far less subtle
setback in order to get their center of mass in between the two wheels and there are handling
ramifications to this uh so into it so when you've got a short torso you might actually find the need
to fit a set back seat post this is something we probably ought to um to highlight in this
video is that there are is that seat posts have different levels of setback yeah here you've got
inline 15 mil 25 mil and you know depending on the rider's physiology you might need any one of
these and i guess furthermore using a different seat post is another way of enabling you to get
the south slap bang in the middle of the rail so that you don't excessively
uh or asymmetrically load the saddle uh but riders with short torsos a lot of ladies uh tend to need
inline post to get that saddle further forward and they're like saying you then end up having the
the benefit of opening up the hips and this that and the other in conclusion saddle setback is
really all about the needs of the individual if you've got impinge hips or a very short torso
run it further forward if you are if you have a massive head run it further back i wanted to do
a little bonus segment in this video which is how do you measure your saddle back if you're at home
you will need two things bicycle and tape measure put the rear wheel against the wall
measure from the wall to the nose of the saddle and then measure from
the wall to the center of the bottom bracket subtract the two that's the sample setback so
that concludes our episode of fightfit tuesdays on settle on settle saddle setback now a lot
of you requested how to set your saddle setback we couldn't make that video because there isn't
a formulaic way to do it i can't stress enough what james was trying to get across earlier that
it's down to your physiology look at yourself look at the kind of human that you are and make
your changes based on that like with a lot of things in bike fit there is no formulaic way but
certainly with saddle setback it's one of the less dangerous things to experiment with so do feel
free to experiment with it thank you as always for watching i'm gonna put a link down below
if you'd like to book a fit with james equally if you have any comments or questions put them
down below and we'll do our best to answer them thank you for watching and i'll see you guys soon