I have been riding on a Fuji Roubaix for a year and think the seat is a bit low because when I have my hands at the lowest position on the bars with hands on brifters and try to ankle up on my up-strokes, it is especially difficult. Is there a "formula" or suggestions or seat heignt?

Your femur length and your shin length should be the cosine of the ideal angle of your knee at the bottom of the stroke, which for 74% of the population (among Anglos, anyway) is 176.34 deg. Don't forget to take into account the lengths of each toe and your ankles' flexibility.



Or just keep raising the seat, one centimeter at a time (at most), until the backs of your knees feel like you're doing a hurdler stretch. Then drop it back down an increment or two.

Basically, pain in the front of your knees = seat too low; pain in back = too high.

Set your saddle height so that when your foot is at the bottom of the pedal stroke, your knee is bent around 30 degrees. If your knee is straight at the bottom of your pedal stroke, then your saddle is much too high.

A quick an easy way for me to do it is to position the saddle height so that when the cranks are parallel with the seat tube, and you're sitting normally on the saddle, your heel should hover just above the pedal with your leg fully extended. If you're doing this, you have to make sure you don't lean over and that you sit up like you normally would.

Yes, there is a formula and it gets you very close 90% of the time and close to 100% of the time with normally proportioned people on normal bikes and is correct for all types, mtb, road, hybrid, whatever with exception of some tri and tt bikes and other special purpose types.

Standing in stocking feet, back to wall, have a friend take a hardcover book, about one inch spine, shove it up pretty hard almost to saying ouch into your crotch and then place a mark on the wall intersection with book. Measure that number and then multiply by .883. The result is your "classic" saddle height, some adjustment may be needed depending on shoes, pedal systems, foot size and pedaling style, crank length and possibly saddle fore and aft positioning (for those who do not center knee over spindle). Adjust the saddle height measuring from center of BB to the crown of the saddle along the seat tube.

I know it is fashionable to jack the saddle up to the moon in some circles and in others to ride around as if you were squatting on the bike but the formula I gave is widely known and used and works pretty good.

This formula and variations of it have been around for a long time and have been used and proven reliable starting points for set up and are variously called the "LeMond Formula" etc.

this is what i've heard a lot of fitters use for a starting point, and should get you pretty close to your ideal height with a little tweaking.

The right height is the one that lets you go the farthest with the highest sustainable power with the least pain. Finding that balance is a bear. GL

This is a great way and I have done this but should this be done with riding shorts and riding shoes on. I am assuming this because each of those will effect you position on the sadle.

i did that heels brushing the pedal stuff. all these rules are just starting points. the only way to get it just right is to know what it feels like to be wrong and tweek accordingly. i thought i had it right, then did a ride with some really steep climbs and felt some pain so i had to change it again. i'll see tomorrow if it feels better. i've moved it up and down several times now, zeroing in.