My bike has a 1" setback seat post but I need to get the seat back about 1 more inch.

Has anyone ever taken some bolts or steel rods and clamped them into the seat post mount and then taken the seat and attached it to the bolts or rods. This seems like it would be an inexpensive way to test and see if 1 more inch of setback would be right for my fit.

So if I attempt this what grade bolts and size do I need to use. Or would you go with music wire. Also do you think that the extra leverage on the seat post would break the mount?

And you are not concerned that will change the handling dramatically, quite possibly in a negative way?

ummmm, as in maybe twitchy or unstable?

I dunno, but my ride seemed twitchy and unstable - went away completely when I moved seat forward 3/4 inch

You bring up a good point because today I changed seats and moved it back as far as I could get it and I did notice a little drift while descending in turns. I didn't have my tires up to full pressure and thought that maybe the tire pressure was causing the drift but it could be the balance of the bike.

I am a weak ride and I only produce maybe 80 watt so what I am attempting to do is shift my weight to the rear so that I can get some pressure off my hands. With the seat back my hands did feel better and I could bend my elbows and get into a straight back and lower position.

As far as the bike handling if it is a problem I could shift to the front of the saddle for descents and I could sit back for level and climbing. Or would this be foolish and a wreck waiting to happen?

2" setback seatpost is quite a lot. Are you incredibly tall and on the tallest frame you can find or are you trying to make an incredibly small frame fit you?

Either way your solution to test out the fit should work as long as you don't hit a bump in the road.

I am 6 feet tall and the bike is 56cm CTC. When standing over the bike and lifting the bike the tires come off the ground by about 1". I think that the whole problem is that I am just weak and can't put out much power. When I am pedaling hard there is little weight or pressure on my hands. I am still experimenting with my fit and from what I have been reading the two ways to take pressure off the hands are to move the seat back or lower the bars. I have plenty of flexibility so maybe I need to start dropping the bars now and see what happens. It seems that lower bars would not be the way to go but I guess if you get the bars low enough you have problems reaching them and the weight of the hands is decreased. It would be good to get a lower profile.

this doesn't make sense. you say when you are pedaling hard there is little weight or pressure on your hands. then later you speak of two ways to take pressure off your hands. depending on what you are trying to do here you could get a longer or shorter stem. try flipping the one you have.

If I could keep pedaling hard, then I would be ok. The problem is that I can't keep cranking the pedals hard enough to keep the pressure off my hands for the entire ride.

Lowering the bars might help, because this will pre-stretch your glutes more and get more power out of them.

You just try rotating your hips forward to make your back flatter, though.

Also, 56 seems a little small for 6'... I'm 5'10" and take a 57.

I think that the 56 is a little small. But the stand over height is minimal. I have been looking for a great deal on a 58 but I am thinking that I will have zero stand over with the larger frame.

Jim p the stand over had been discused a lot and people still insist in using stand over, The stand over is given by two factors the bb shell height and how tall the front tube is. The bb height is not standar and will depend of the bike design, so if you move to a another bike that has the same size everywhere but the BB height higher probably will have a TT that is higher, then guess what, you will pick a smaller size because the one that fits has taller stand over. With the front tube is the same situation, some manufacturesrs have models that have a front tube that is just ridiculously tall, the top tube will be higher, it means big stand over, then again if you go with stand over size u get the wrong frame size again.

What u have to do is to post a picture of yourself riding the bike because what u want to do just doesnt make any sense, besides if you are riding all the time with 53x15 or 14 it makes sense why u need more room to move the saddle back. That explains too why the hands hurt too tho. Nobody knows your riding habits and we are just guessing. W/o seeing you or you giving us more details is hard to know because right now I'm seeing somebody riding a specialize with a super tall front tube, stem angle up, saddle angle up and riding with 53x12 all the time.

Cheers

That's because

1) You're untrained. You can see significant results for the first three years following a structured training plan.

and/or

2) You just don't have too much genetic potential. Get your weight down to about 145 pounds and try to be competitive in hill climbs or just enjoy yourself.

That implies a reasonable fore/aft position because your ass is far enough back to counter-balance your torso.

At 5'10" (with a 30.5" inseam) I take a 53 or 54 center-to-center using Lemond's formula and ride a 55 center-to-top (53.5 center-to-center) with a 55.5 cm top tube and 120mm stem.

Seems fine.

Thanks for all the great comments. I think that I will keep the seat where it is and experiment with lowering the bars. I have started back riding after about 1 year of not riding so I am building strength and endurance. I have now been riding for about 1 month. My riding has consisted of hill repeats which are 5 days a week of 5 miles per day. I am grinding up the hill a 5 mph in my lowest gear of 28 front and 30 back so this is not much power and it is not even great spinning. I now have about 70 miles of this riding with one 10 mile ride of rolling hills. I have a long ways to go when it comes to getting trained. About 2 months ago I weighed 200 lbs and I started dieting and with God's help I am now 168 lbs and I am planning on going on down to 145 like was mentioned above. One reason that I decided to go on down as low as possible is that I am type 2 diabetic for the last 18 years and I saw that some research has shown that type 2 diabetes has been cured in some people by going on a 300 calorie per day diet for one week. The study was saying that in some the fat in the pancreas was reduced and the pancreas started working better. If I can get this result it will be worth not eating for a week. I was taking 180 units of insulin each day and since I have been dieting I am taking no insulin and my blood sugar hovers around 150 which is considered under control but not perfect.

I really believe that riding my bike has extended my life. 5 years ago when I started riding I could not ride over 100 yards without having to stop due to chest pain. It took me 2 weeks to work up to 1 mile without having to stop. I finally got into good enough shape to ride 40 miles in 4 hours. Again this is not a great time but considering where I started it is a miracle.

Ok it is time for me to get back on topic. So I will adjust the bars and maybe the seat angle and I may get a picture but don't look for a picture for a while because it is hot and I would have to convince my wife that she needs to come out and take pictures of me. Even if I don't get pictures I will post again and update my experiences.

I had a similar problem with a slightly undersized MTB. I had a setback seat post and moved the seat back as far as I dared on the rails and still could have used a bit more. I talked to a couple of LBSs and was warned about excessive setback as it places a heck of a lot of strain on the seat post, especially, as in my case, when the seat post is quite a ways out of the frame (I only had about 4.5 inches of seatpost inside the tube). I also noticed that after taking some rough rides the rails under the seat began to bow just a little, but enough to make a noticable difference in the tilt of the seat. I ended up finding a larger frame with another 1.5 inches of top tube and 2 inches of seat tube length. Much better fit without any extreme adjustments.

Some good advice I got was that on a properly fit bike, all adjustments should fall within the middle third of their adjustment range when set to your preferences. If you are at the extreme low end or high end of adjustments, or need special adapters, you probably need a different frame size.

You could look for one of these (Sakae Ringyo MTE-100):

56cm frame is likely too small.

Often excessive pressure on the hands can be solved by adjusting the saddle, but not by sliding it back - by tilting the nose up.

Seriously - you need to be fit to a bike by someone that knows what they're doing. This might include getting a larger bike that actually fits you. Go to any road racing event. See if anyone there has a 2" setback seatpost. Didn't think so.

Over time you will learn how to adjust the bicycle so it fits you, but you're not there yet. You seem serious about riding. I guarantee you'll see a dramatic improvement in comfort, and how much you enjoy riding the bicycle when you get it to fit you. 10 minutes with a guy at the shop will save you hours of blind guessing.

That will leave you both slow and tired. You need enough easy recovery days (plus weeks, traditionally 1 in 4) so that you're fresh enough for your hard days to be tough enough to produce training adaptations.