savethekudzu provided a link to the excellent article about saddle height on the Sheldon Brown website, but if you are concerned about the need to plant your feet on the ground when on the bicycle, it's perhaps best to start with the article there regarding mounting and dismounting.


As you will see from reading that article, you shouldn't be remaining on the seat when you pull up to a stop. Instead, you should be coming forward off the seat, to stand astride the bar when you have pulled up to a halt. Get that starting and stopping technique sorted, and then the fine tuning of saddle height will be easy to sort out.

The saddles on bikes I ride sit somewhere around hip height when I stand beside the bike. It varies a bit, depending upon the shape of the bike and the length of the crank arm.