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...Joel Osteen makes a pretty good living. I'm not flying to Houston either.

Use your own brain. Does it make sense? No matter where you put the saddle, if you sit on it no hands, your weight distribution on the saddle will be almost exactly the same. Maybe a small difference for how your legs interact with the pedals, but all your weight is on your butt. Now put your hands on the bars. The distance to the bars and slope of the torso will affect how much weight you need to support with your hands, arms and shoulders. That is why you move the bars with different length stems. You don't move the saddle for that purpose. The saddle is fixed by pedaling efficiency considerations. But wait, I've said that before.

Think about it for a moment. Stop worrying about Steve Hogg's success and just think about it. Emperor's new clothes.

Amen, brother.

Are you referring to this? https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com...or-road-bikes/, see section on "Point of Balance". And, do you discredit Keith Bontrager's thesis, see https://www.sheldonbrown.com/kops.html? Note, neither authors is advocating anything that is contrary to the need to maximizing "pedaling power output and efficiency" but a method of locating "just the right amount" based on the best compromise of the rider's power output, efficiency, and functionality. IMO, it's a more refine touch than just pegging your angles again a table.

Not exactly. The weight distribution changes with hip angle even for a fixed saddle point. Put your bike on a trainer. Sit on your seat no handed bolt upright pedaling and then get into your drops position and tuck your hands behind your back and do the same. Depending on how far setback your seat is you might not even be able to hold this position. Now slam the saddle back and repeat. It will feel different in both positions.

Sure, for a fixed hip angle and saddle position the distance will affect the weight distribution, but a change in saddle position with a corresponding stem length change to match the reach and a fixed hip angle will change the weight distribution.
Agreed, but that is a separate discussion. When discussing fit parameters and first setting saddle setback you need to have an idea of what parameters you want to bias your fit towards in terms of flexibility/aero/comfort, which essentially corresponds to a hip angle value you adjust your saddle setback with for your personal anatomy.


Depends on your goals. The fastest in a straight line is not the position you make the most efficient power. The fastest cornering and descending position isn't the same position either.

This kind of makes sense (balance on your butt, & lean forward until there is some weight on hands)

for a cruiser bike, or maybe for a cyclist with no legs.

But then you need a negative stem length or the bars swept back almost to the BB. See pic in post #11.

These or similar numbers have been posted before. But here they are again.
Inseam-------- Set Back
75 to 78cm -- 4 to 6cm
79 to 82cm-- 5 to 7cm
83 to 86cm-- 6 to 8cm
87 to 90cm-- 7 to 9cm

They are from a 30yr old Bernard Hinault book.
I don't think anything has changed that would have effected them.
He generally favours the larger numbers too and they may even be exceeded for riders with long femurs.

And some text from the same book,

"For road riding it's more efficient to pedal "at the back" with a sizable setback of the saddle, rather than "at the front". Two main reasons for this.
- Its easier to push your foot forward when crossing the upper dead spot and pull back at the lower dead spot. This has the effect of smoothing at the pedal stroke by increasing the continuity of force exerted on the pedals.
- Pushing with the foot tends to stabilize the pelvis on the saddle. This also evens out the stroke, since the legs can then be used soley for propulsion without getting involved, as a reflex, in counteracting the natural tendancy
to slide forward on the saddle when the effort is intense.
The more forward the saddle, the more the rider will slide forward because of a shift at the lower end of the power zone portion of the stroke.
However it is difficult for some riders to adopt such a position because they lack suppleness and lower back strength."

I have also seen fit numbers for a number of the current pro's and they are generally within those listed above.

I'm done. Hasta la vista, Dudes.

Faith Based Bicycle Fitting Systems
 

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...how would Jesus ride ?

Strong words! It makes sense to me if you consider how your body shifts it weight around automatically in order to achieve balance. The typical example given is to stand with your back and heels pressed against a wall, an then try to bend from the hips. With you butt pressed against the wall, you will soon topple forward once your core muscles can no longer support you. If you stand away from the wall, when you bend over your backside will move to the rear to help offset the weight of your upper body.

The idea (that Hogg et al are proposing) is the same - you move the saddle to the rear to move your CoG to the rear and reduce weight on your hands, which are supporting your torso.

I have experimented with this and found it to be true, as basic physics would dictate. I found that reducing weight on my hands made my longer rides much more comfortable, lessending shoulder and neck tension and hand numbness. YMMV.

Why don't you give it a try and see for yourself :-)

I think we're zeroing in here. I would argue that depending on your balance of power & comfort, that both balance and leg postion are inputs. In my experiments, I have been favoring comfort, and I haven't noticed huge subjective differences in power by moving the saddle +/- 2cm from a mid-point. I like aiming for the "balance" because I saw positive comfort benefits, and no disadvantage. I'll readilly accept that maybe I'm compromising on power output, but for my riding, this is not the priority. I'd rather finish a Century ride without an aches and pains, than 15 minutes sooner in agony.

I'm not a racer, and this may be the fundamental difference between the points of view.

That said, I am interested in understand the physiological affect of saddle position, and in avoiding injuring, so I'm quite willing to alter my compromise position as my needs and wants evolve. I'm currently experimenting with a more forward saddle position and longer stem to assess the comfort factor using different muscles (more quads and less glutes) - so I'm not in any religous camp here!

Excellent answer. Let's use science rather than supposition to test this. You can place bathroom sacles under the wheels to get an idea of how much weight you putting on the front wheel. Watch these change as you move the saddle to the rear.

...science is not anecdotal evidence from an experimental sampling of one. Your proposed experiment has poor controls, and the experimental design makes no provision for idiosyncratic inputs from the user.

...if anything, without other adjustments like saddle tilt or a shorter stem in conjunction with it, moving the saddle to the rear extends reach. Thus in the vast majority of us, will result in leaning farther forward to compensate for the increase in reach. Again, in most normal people this increase in reach will result in more weight ending up on your hands, as you lean more of your upper body weight on your further extended arms.


But I understand that belief, if strong enough, can produce miraculous results among the faithful.

So I'm gonna classify your result here as a miracle. :)

We don't need to overthink this :-) The whole balance idea is based on the simple premise that if you shift some of your body to the rear, that there will be a subsequent reduction in body weight to the front. Nothing else. Whether this is a good thing or not can still be debated.

Yes, correct. If you move the saddle to the rear you will generally to correct for reach by either:

1) Using a shorter stem
2) Adjusting your hip angle so that the torso is straighter and more horizontal, and thus gain some forward reach.

Was this comment really necessary? I don't think I'm suggesting any kind of voodoo here - just plain mechanics of balance and levers, which I really think you'd be hard pressed to argue against. You are free to invent a more rigorous scientific proof or rebuttal if you wish, and I would happily study it, and would be open to modifying my understanding if convinced. You seem less willing to try it.

In any case, riding a bike is as much about subjective feel as anything else, unless you are a competitive racer in which case you want to log performance differences. I happen to like less weight on my hands, so I set my bike and posture to that end. You may choose to something completely different, and that is your right.

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...I don't really put a lot of weight on my hands, at least not continuously. I try to shift weight from bar to pedals to saddle as the need arises.

And yes, the comment was completley in keeping with the overall evolution of this thread. You're arguing faith as science.

Interesting.

I think things have shifted a bit since those guys pushed such big gears. Now higher cadence, lower gears,

so less need to 'push from the back'- see Merckx & Sagan in post #11

You can test this in your office chair:

Feet on the floor, hands on the desk, you can easily roll the chair back & forth several inches without

changing torso angle- only moving arms & knee angle.

Not that miraculous...

...I'm dubious that sitting upright in an office chair is a good experimental model for what happens on a bicycle. Call me old fashioned if you want to.

Really? I don't think so; sitting on any kind of seat and leaning forward without using your hands for support, some of your weight invariably ends up on your feet. That's the whole point here. You're a scientist? Do an experiment: sit on your chair (preferably on the edge so most of the weight of your legs is resting on your feet) and place a scale under your feet. Sit straight up, record the number on the scale. Lean forward, record the number again. Is there a difference? Next you can change the position of your feet in relation to your hips while keeping the same torso angle. Compare muscle activation and perceived effort when your feet are more under you versus further in front of you. Is there a position that feels better than being further away or closer in?

Here, I'll do the same experiment and we can compare numbers. Don't just run away when your ideas are challenged, test them.

Okay, I'm back to respond to your request. How does your test relate to where you place your saddle? I see it relates to torso angle but what else. I will run the test a little later this AM.

Test done and results are as you expected. 35 lb on the legs when sitting upright. 75 lb at 45°. 105 lb at full tuck. Now tell me so what. I want to be peddling as well as possible first and foremost. I am happy to support my torso weight with my hands. Maybe a I just fortuitously have my saddle in the perfect Hogg position. I wonder how that happened. KOPS anyone?

Heh. That's the first thing that popped into my head.

The saddle is to the pedals as your seat was to your feet in the floor.

Moving saddle back relative to pedals is similar to moving feet forward relative to seat.