"You'll blow your knees out"
 

Today I picked up my hybrid after her warranty tune-up, anyway, the bike dude noticed my seat was lower than before. He got me to do the "fitting" again and put the seat up a bit, he figured my wipe out last week bumped the seat down somehow.

I rode outside and immediately hated the higher seat. I felt like I was suddenly, well, much higher on the bike (duh) and I could only tippy-toe on one foot when my feet were off the pedals, that freaked me out so I went back in and asked him to lower the seat a little. He said the seat was at the perfect height for me (checked my knee position etc etc) but lowered it a little for me, since I asked. He then said "don't pedal too hard" I was confused by his statement. "wha??" "You'll blow your knees out with the seat that low" and made a "explody" motion with his hand.

Umm..I rode countless bikes that were never adjusted for me as a teenager etc and didn't "blow my knees out" though I have patella femoral syndrome in both knees (coincidence.) Anyway, is what he said true?

Legions of people out riding right now are mere miles away from blown knees?!?:lol:

You shouldn't normally be able to put a foot down while sitting on the saddle. That was as true for me when I first got my hybrid out of moth balls 2yrs back, as it is with my road bike today. Riding at the proper saddle height can feel weird at first, but it's optimized for your foot being extended while riding not sitting with a foot on the ground. It's pretty well known that if you ride with a low saddle you put more stress on your knees that you need to, I proved that to myself once I started riding clipless, pushing harder and taking on bigger climbs.

If your riding style and saddle height cause you no problem though, good for you, but your mechanic wasn't BS'ing you.

What is your mileage? If you are riding a few miles at a time, a couple times a week, then you have nothing to worry about. If you start actually being serious about road cycling, then you will have to worry about the correct adjustments - saddle height being the most important.

It is true that a saddle which is too low can lead to some pretty bad knee problems. If you are riding lots and trying to push yourself, you should definitely listen to the bike shop employee. You should not be positioning your saddle according to how well you can touch the ground. The ground is irrelevant to pedaling. The rough rule of thumb is to place your heal on your pedal while you sit square in the saddle (have someone hold the bike for you, or lean against something. You should not have your other foot on the ground) and your saddle should be adjusted so your leg is locked in that position. Then, when you put the ball of your foot on the pedal, your leg is mostly straight, but with a little bend to it.

Anyway... Point is that if you ride with any sort of intensity and for any significant distance, then saddle position is important and you shouldn't :lol: it away. If you are just spinning around the bike path a couple miles a week at walking pace, then you have nothing to worry about. Most of the cyclists in the "Road Cycling" forum are the former; they want to get seriously into cycling and so saddle position is extremely important to avoid repetitive stress injury.

which is the correct position. if you can put your foot down while your butt is on the saddle, its too low. if you need to stop at an intersection or something, you need to come off the saddle

IMO I ride a lot. I've put hundreds of kilometres on my hybrid and she's just past her 1 month birthday (typo in original post, week not year, sorry.)

Truth be told, I'm afraid of wiping out again. I actually fear going downhill fast now. It wasn't even a "bad" wipe out though I jammed my shoulder and messed up my wrist a little. I know it sounds neurotic..I hate admitting it. I feel if I can't touch toes on both feet while on the saddle, I'll wipe out again or something. It's a security issue, I guess.

Don't let the fall phase you from getting a better riding position. It might perhaps help with your other saddle thread as well. I didn't really enjoy good descents on a hybrid - you can try to get a little more aero, but it's just not as easy as it is on a road bike, I feel way more connected to the road on a nice downhill on a road bike compared to my hybrid.

It's normal that you can't put your foot flat on the floor while sitting if saddle height is correct. But you won't fall because of it. You can get out of the saddle at a stop or just lean over a bit and keep balance with your toes.

I hear you about your crash. Those little psycological "issues" can be a pain. I crashed bad in a race last year and it kind of messed with my head for a little while after I got back on my bike. My first race back (at the same venue even), I was a mess with my bike handling. I'm sure that nobody wanted to be close to me. I was flinching at every little move someone made around me; I'm actually surprised that I didn't cause a crash. But I survived that race; nobody yelled at me too loudly and I didn't crash again, which would have been a disaster to my mindset.

About the saddle position. What the bike shop told you is absolutely correct for the mileage you are doing. When you start getting more physically conditioned and start pushing the pedals harder, you will start feeling it in your knees. Now that you know what is "correct", I would suggest marking that spot on the seatpost, then set the saddle height back to where you feel comfortable, from a mental standpoint. After a week or so, raise the saddle a few millimeters. Do this every week until you are where you should be. That might get you over your mental hump.

Oh, and when you fall, try not to stick your arm out to catch yourself :). Don't think you did anything wrong. It's just natural instinct. I haven't dislocated my shoulder yet from my crashes simply because I am blessed with elbows that don't lock. I hit with my hand and my body goes down rolling like it should because my elbow naturally collapses and doesn't transmit the shock to my shoulder. I have lots of scars on my elbows to show for it. For your confidence, you might want to have someone teach you how to fall and practice it on grass so that maybe you won't jam your shoulder next time you go down.

You'll get used to it. It always feels just a bit odd for the first ride when you change something like that. Then you'll start to notice that you feel so much better on the bicycle.

Yeah, patella femoral syndrome is caused by riding a saddle that is too low. And you can get away with a lot when you're a kid ... although apparently you didn't get away with it after all. And yes, I just shake my head and bite my tongue when I see people riding around with their knees around their ears because their saddles are too low. Of course most of those people probably only ride maybe 50 miles a week so they aren't doing that much damage. But my knees ache when I look at them.

Here's something for you to read about knees and cycling:
http://www.cptips.com/knee.htm


In fact while you're at it, you might read that whole site ... especially the equipment and medical tips to start with:
http://www.cptips.com/toc.htm#equitip

It's a good site, lots of helpful information.

As kids, you can get away with having the saddle too low because kids never ride lots of mileage continuously at high speeds. But once you starting doing more than 10-miles at a time, the repetitive motion becomes more strenuous on your knees.

There are various fit ideologies out there, and they're all pretty close to each other. One method prescribes putting your heel on the pedal at the bottom of the stroke. Your leg should be straight. This is actually the minimum height to have and all the other fit techniques will actually have your seat even higher. Track racers tend to have their seats about 1/2" higher than this even.

Well, knee injuries are the foundation of the orthopedic medicine business, so don't just assume that you will be ok if others are.

Repetitive stress injuries can be be quite serious. Take the bike fitters advice and learn to ride your bike with the proper fit. It will take some getting used to, but your knees are worth it.

If you don't like the high center of gravity on your hybrid, you can consider a road bike or various other newer designs that lower your center of gravity. You definitely trade comfort for stability with some bikes.

I had the exact same issue, and only on Saturday when the really good shop's employee came out with me and showed me proper form for mounting and dismounting did I really get comfortable with a proper height. To mount, you stand astride the top tube, put the right (if that is your dominant leg) pedal slightly north of horizontal, mash it hard, and use that leg to lift yourself to the saddle. Dismounting, you keep your right foot on that pedal, slide forward off the seat, and land your left foot on the ground. After spending some time doing it it becomes easier, and the pedalling itself starts to feel more natural.

Someone with more experience please chime in if I somehow got it wrong, but I too wanted to be able to put my feet easily on the ground while seated. Give it a day of practicing away from traffic and you should have it.

+ 1.

Funny story: I taught myself this "correct" fairly early on, once I had the saddle at something approximating the correct height. The "cowboy" mount that I saw other people doing looked unstable and scary, so I figured out something else that worked better for me - which happened to be lifting myself into the saddle by my starting pedal stroke, as above. I later went through a period when I used the cowboy mount a lot in college mostly for my amusement once I didn't feel way too unbalanced to even attempt it. So sometimes it's hard for me to 'get' that people aren't usually familiar with the safe and effective way to mount a bike. I taught my housemate a couple years back, and she immediately became a lot more confident and comfortable on her bike.

OP, you really will be doing yourself a favor if you get used to having the saddle higher. Brian Ratliff makes a good suggestion about raising it gradually as you get past your fear. Your knees will thank you, and I think your road bike might start to feel a bit better, too, once you have an appropriate saddle height. All it takes is a little practice, and coming off the saddle when you stop will feel totally natural.

The lower your saddle, the more your kneecaps are compressed into your femurs which stresses the cartilage surfaces on both your kneecaps and femurs.

If you do have patellofemoral syndrome then the last thing you want is having your saddle too low.

I had a patellofemoral flare-up last summer and I rechecked my fit on the bike, only to find that my saddle was lower than the fitter had prescribed. I set it back at his prescribed height at 79cm and felt like I had lost some leverage but I got used to it so hopefully you can adjust, too.

Being able to put a foot down in the saddle is not going to prevent a fall if you're riding 10mph or more.

You're actually better of keeping your limbs attached to the bike in a crash.

There's no way to adjust a conventional geometry bike to allow you to put both feet down, and stay seated, and have the seat height correct.

If you really can't get over this, the option is to buy an Electra Townie, or similarly designed bikes. They're designed to allow you to put your feet down seated, by moving the pedals forward in a slightly recombant setup. Not really intended for fast or long rides though.

Listen to Sheldon...

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/starting.html

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/pain.html

YOU HAD TO GET INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO "MOUNT" AMD "DISMOUNT" A BIKE?

Geez.....I learned this from my dad when I was 4 years old and he took the training wheels off. Learned it over and over living on my bikes all summer when I was on a kid, having a paper route where I really rode my bike and threw the papers.

Did you grow up in a bubble or something :rolleyes:

Anyone remember the way Kevin Bacon dismounted from his fixie in that movie???

Raise the seat and learn to ride a bike properly. The patella femoral syndrome you have is not a coincidence. Listen to the advice the LBS and everyone here is giving you.

I know ... it seems amazing to those of us who have been riding almost as long as we've been walking, but there are a few people here who didn't learn to ride a bicycle until they were adults ... their parents thought those bicycle-things were too dangerous or something.

I've had that syndrome since I was 17 (35 now.)

another from Mr. Brown: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/saddles.html#adjustment

All the more reason you should raise your saddle now before the situation gets any worse. BTW - I was operating under the assumption that you basically had your road bicycle set up correctly ... having a saddle that's too low could put a lot of pressure on your middle bits too.