Thoughts on saddle height

09/10/24 21:28 Filed in: Riding

If you want the TL:DR right now, it is that 1 mm too high can be terrible, but 1 mm too low is seldom even noticeable.

The details...
Sometimes I swear that YouTube and Facebook can hear me think. I've been having some seat-comfort issues with my Checkpoint commuting bike since I got the new frame - more than 12 months ago. It has never been quite right in that period. Meanwhile I changed the crank length on my Madone road bike necessitating a change in seat height. I hadn't changed the seat height since I assembled that bike several years ago, so I wasn't sure how to do it or exactly how much to change it by. This is perhaps where the default feed results came from?
After riding my Madone on Sunday with the saddle at very much as much the same height as the Checkpoint as I could muster, and deciding it felt a very tiny amount too high I got to thinking if that was the source of discomfort on the Checkpoint. And into my YouTube feed came a bike fitters video about how saddle height impacts on saddle comfort. Now I didn't have the symptoms of a too-high saddle he spoke of, but I still wanted to try lowering it to see if that helped things.
I had to do a few minor things to the Checkpoint and included lowering the seat in that list. I think I went down around 4 mm. I have a red mark on the post to indicate if the post was slipping (it did slip twice when new - solved with carbon grip paste and slightly more torque on the pinch bolt). I hid the red mark. So now I can't tell if I slide down, but that is about 4mm change.
On that basis of one ride to work the next morning, I think it did help. I'm still not convinced that the saddle on there is a perfect match for me, but it definitely is not a bad one.
Next thing I have to do is revisit the Madone and drop that saddle by the same amount (and also get out some car wax to shine up the portion of the post that has been hidden inside the frame for several years but is now showing).

And then ride. Ride a bunch to see if the problem has been solved.
Typically I suggest someone try a saddle for 20 hours before deciding if they like it or not. Unfortunately, I seem to need longer. Many saddles have been close. Few have been good.
Thus I expect it will take 10 or more hours to evaluate the small drop in seat height as 1-not necessary, 2-just right, 3-too much or 4-not enough.

When the saddle goes too high, the hips cannot sit squarely on the top of the saddle and reach down to both pedals through a full revolution of the cranks. Everyone favours one side, so the non-favoured side should be reaching too far and rocking a bit on the seat resulting in pain (and possibly saddle sores) on that side. This YouTube video fitter has a saddle pressure mapping device for clients and can see if a rider is evenly sat upon the saddle. He displayed a before and after map for one client where they were heavily right-favoured before and very even after. In this case not from just dropping the saddle a bit, but a whole suite of changes including the lower seat.

If you find yourself always getting sores on one side, or your hips are rocking slightly, or you are always trying to ride on the saddle nose - these are all signs of a too-high seat.

Conversely, there are no signs of a too-low seat unless you look at near-maximal power outputs where the lack of full leg extension will cost a few Watts.

So err on the side of slightly too low.

Michael Hanslip Coaching

If you want to go faster, you have to pedal harder

Thoughts on saddle height