Mountain Biking - Can your feet touch..?

When you are sitting on the saddle of your MTB, can your feet touch the ground?

Do you ride with a lower seat than on a road bike?

I was told I should be able to have my feet touch the ground on my MTB ( Tallboy).

On my old bike I could not touch the ground (GF Paragon).

Any thoughts?

It's just about comfort. If im climbing a lot and I need a lot of power I like having my legs fully extended at the bottom of my pedal stroke, which means that I wouldn't be able to touch to ground.

It depends on how you're using the bike. If you're an XC rider who does a lot of climbing, you want close to full leg extension. The saddle on my XC bike is only a centimeter or so lower than my road bike (just a tiny bit lower so I don't run into it when I'm moving around the cockpit). If you're not sitting and spinning and spend more time out of the saddle, you want it lower and out of the way. The saddle on my hardtail is a bit lower so it's out of the way when I'm out of the saddle, but still high enough for me to sit and pedal, and the saddle on my DJ is slammed, because it only gets used when the bike is stopped and I'm sitting and resting.

No, unless I slam the post.

The Tallboy is an XC bike. You will probably want the seat at a good pedaling height most of the time.

My feet can touch the ground, but just barely with my toes.

My saddle to BB distance is generally about 1/2" shorter on my MTBs than on my road bike.

Feet touching the ground isn't a good reference, go based off your proper leg extension.

I've never really tried... I ride XC and rocky technical stuff, never had to touch the ground from the saddle. Seems kinda pointless.

if you are sitting on your seat and your feet touch the ground, that means your knees are way bent when they are on your pedals, and so your seat is too low or you are riding a bmx bike.

Depends on the BB height...

Toes of one foot.

I pedal a lot, not a lot of jumping, so I hit saddle height by the heel-on-pedal method. This means when I put a foot down, I BETTER be off the saddle!

Many of my rides involve steep climbs and descents, so I'll vary my seat height during the ride- higher for the climb, lower for descents in technical terrain where I'm using a lot of upper body motion and keeping my weight back.

No, I can barely touch the ground with my feet while sitting on the saddle squarely standing still. Maybe tiptoes or one flat floot with one butt cheek on the saddle. But who buys a bike based on that? You ride a bike, not stand over it.

My saddle height is the same on all my bikes. Same saddle to pedal length, roughly. I'm an ol skool XC rider and like all my bikes set up the same way. Now if I was riding a dirt jump mtb or DH mtb, saddle height would be different.

With my road bike, I'm on my tippy toes, maybe, I don't remember.

With my MTB, I change the seat height with the type of riding I'm doing. Usually it's lower than my road bike but never as low as with my feet completely flat on the ground unless I'm jumping a lot of logs, roots, etc. then I'll lower it. When I climbing, I don't change it. I'm climbing between trees and over roots, up and overs, I want to be able to clip out and put my feet down quickly. I only raise the height if I'm doing a lot of straightaways.