Originally Posted by Doug Fattic

Mike, my intuition is telling me something isn't right about what is your best bicycling position. You must have ended up with is a very far forward saddle position. Maybe because you are trying to reach your handlebars comfortably? There are a variety of methods to arrive at saddle setback. Many of those methods involve finding the most efficient position to get the greatest amount of speed. They are racing based. KOPS falls into this catagory. These methods don't work well for many of my past 40 year old framebuilding class students or even my younger urban riders that like to sit more upright looking down the road for potential hazards (and not looking at a very close back wheel like on a group training ride).

A comfortable saddle setback position for many of my particular group involves sliding the saddle backward until the rider's weight is balanced over his pedals. This more rearward position takes their body weight off of their arms and hands and doesn't require using your core muscles to hold yourself up in a more forward position, This position is easy enough to find on a stationary fitting bike. Often production frames with a standard setback seat post doesn't allow a saddle to go far enough back to discover that body balancing point. Of course for shorter people that often brings their toes into a 700C or 650B front wheel. So smaller wheels work better and now we are off to the complications of frame design.

Of course body issues can require breaking all the standard rules. I'm with Andy that usually a far forward saddle position is used on a time trial type of position with lots of drop between the saddle and the handlebars. This is why many tri bikes have very steep seat angles. My body balanced comfort position has the saddle going the other way and may require a 71º or less (and maybe not) seat angle.