Originally Posted by
79pmooney
My saddles are all a little nose down. Actual setting comes after riding with the wrenches and tweaking until it disappears. For me, no plastic saddle has never achieved "disappearing" set level. (Leather saddles are for me a near torture when I pull forward onto the hard leather on steel nose. And as an ex-racer who loved and still does using the entire saddle, that simply does not work.
Went for a 44 mile ride yesterday on an early '80s race bike with a hard Specialized race saddle aimed slightly down. This post is the first time I thought about the saddle at all.
Mine are all a little nose up. I start with it level and pedal it sitting with my back straight. At this moment I'm lookig for my hips to pedal smoothly without rocking side to side, and for my hips not to slide forward or back wards. If I need to raise the nose to prevent sliding forward, or to lower it to prevent sliding backwards, there will usually need to a small vertical height adjustment as well to restore correct pressure on the sitbones and perineum.
For me those are the basics of saddle position adjustment. That sequence has worked well for me for Brooks Pro, B17, Swallow, Ideale 90, 92, and 80, Specialized Alias, and Toupe.
Try it, but don't let any of the trials go long enough to cause significant pain, especially due to abrasion. If you have abrasion, you will have to tay off th bike and let that heal before you can go back to incrementally adjusting you saddle position. You may find there is such a thing as "easy discomfort" and "very hard discomfort." That could be another learning experience.