Originally Posted by
AlmostTrick
With the saddle far back like many here are advising, I don't like the feeling of "pedaling with the pedals in front of me". I've also read that one gets less power when set up this way. Look at the extreme position on time trial bikes... the riders are on top of the pedals, not behind them.
To me it's mostly a personal preference thing, but I like reading the experience and advice from others on the matter.
I think of a bike setup with the saddle farther back with the pedals more in front of me as a fun setup for a slightly smaller frame that also happens to like to be a
climber. This particular ergonomic setup is more of what I would think of as a
Greg LeMond fit. When I followed his advice in Greg Lemond’s Complete Book of Bicycling this is the vibe I got. I like it! Standing to climb on a bike such as this is different than a more typically fitted road bike with a zero setback seatpost on a slightly more proportional frame. On the smaller (sloping top tube) climbing bike, when I am standing to climb out of the saddle - I don’t feel so claustrophobic. There is a little bit of top tube real estate for tossing and weaving. I think that should make sense.
The time trial-centric of being more forward by pushing the saddle forward more on the rails and maybe using a different stem is less desirable for general purpose road riding but I can appreciate that it does have it’s place for maximizing speed on flats. My old 25” frame Puch Marco Polo ends up being ridden this way just to get me to fit on a too big of frame. I learned to become a good spinner while riding many tens of thousands of miles in this configuration.