G'day all,
Just bought a new bike in the last week and going through the trials of fitting - the saddle is too narrow for me and has to go - will replace with a Brooks B17 standard and see how we go. The bike is a Linus Gaston 3 with quill stem and North Road bars. I'm on the large frame, 6ft tall and have found that while I have the right saddle height and set back for my legs to get me the best geometry for peddling at the bottom of the stroke and placement of the knee alignment with crank horizontal to the frame, I still have a problem.
The problem is that even with the seat post lowered almost to an inch of the base of the seat tube, sitting on the bike places way too much forward pressure on my hands going forward. I have the saddle level and I still feel as though I am falling forward with all my upper body weight going into my hands on the grips. Even without a saddle replacement I am assuming this means I need a taller tube and shorter stem to bring my upper body back into a more natural position, or do I just need a shorter stem with 30 degree rise?
What I have now is an alloy road quill, 100mm x 150mm, 18d rise. I can switch out to a 60mm or 80mm with 30 degree rise, not sure which would be better but I would prefer a more upright riding position so assume the 60mm with 30 deg is the way to go? I used this video as a guide and it confirmed my stem is too long ... the hub is well behind my handlebars which confirms what I am feeling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx4UxRKhgl8
Another question on saddle ... when I took the bike for a 30 ride the other day, once I got up speed and started pumping the peddles I noticed quite a bit of side to side rocking of my hips. Now my saddle height and leg position felt fine, as well as set back, so because the saddle is too narrow for me I am assuming that the rocking I was experiencing was not caused by the usual culprit of saddle height but rather that my saddle was too narrow for my hips and behind - essentially there was so little support on my sit bones and hips that my legs pumping was causing the exaggerated hip rocking I was experiencing?
Cheers!