I sell bikes to lots of really awesome bike riders and some on their way to being awesome, or even riders just looking for a good time on the weekends.

One thing that I keep seing from customers and I see way, way too much of on the internet are seats that are pointed down. Not a teeny-tiny little bit, but pointed down so far that the saddle rails are parallel to the ground. That is just massively the wrong way to attach a seat to a bicycle that it makes my know-it-all elitist brain melt. Sometimes I even yell at the screen. So wrong.

I understand(a little) when I see a new $1200 bike setup nose-down, it takes a while to understand how everything works and bike shops do a horrible job selling road bikes, but I've seen more and more(and more) $5000+ bikes that are otherwised dialed and balanced looking setup wrong, patently, objectively, inexcusably wrong. Wrong! Those stupid(yes, I said it) SMP seats get a pass, because they are just so fundamentally odd that you actually are looking at relatively level rails.

There is no way to deny this. If all of your mass is sliding down onto your hands, your bike isn't going to handle right and you are going to be using way, way more upperbody strength than you should be. You like like a fool too, but we all do by simple act of getting gussied up in our plumage and heading out onto the road, so we can't hold it against y'all too much.

What's to blame here? New younger riders that have always seen track bikes in their neighborhoods setup wrong? The death of proper group road rides full of experinced riders telling people that their bike setup is stupid? It's a shocking trend.

What concerns me most is the bikes I see with 2.5 feet of seatpost extension and a seat pointing at the stem. Dudes- lower your seat two or three centimeters and stick the seat where it belongs. Seats that are centimeters too high are redolent of one common American trait, cock-sizing. Same thing goes for stem length or really small frames. Sometimes it's the unholy trinity all at once. Hell, when I was in middleschool I used to buy shoes that were too large and stuff the ends of them with newspaper to feel more confident in the halls.

Does your dick hurt? If it does, you're not going to solve the problem by messing up your bike. Proper weight distribution is the first step to comfort and efficiency on a bike.

People who are doing it wrong, please, try this-
Grab a level, grab some allen keys and level out your seat. You'll probably want to lower it while you're at it. Rotate the seat a few degrees in either direction to get what you need.
DO THIS. TRY. PLEASE.

Dude, who cares. Either they need a professional bike fit and shouldn't touch it themselves, or for some reason that is how the bike fits their body. Giving advice for a person to raise the nose of their saddle and lower the height is absolutely horrible and only going to lead to injuries to most riders unless they do it properly.

i think i'm missing what you're saying, my saddle rails are parallel to the ground, but the saddle is level. arent saddle rails usually level with the saddle, therefor level saddle; level saddle rails?

my rails are angled somewhere around 6 to 10 degrees off level. It's pretty random. (Saddle is level though)

One thing that Mikey forgot to mention is the side effects of a saddle that is not level:
1: Impotence
2. Limp dick

Saddle MUST always be level with perhaps 1 degree of drop at the front. Go online and look at a pro's bike - you will always see a level seat.

My current saddle is nosed down just a bit. It feels like is has a slight bump just forward and in the center of where my sit bones touch. Pointing the nose down makes it feel "level", but visually, it looks like its pointing down. Technically, I should probably choose a different saddle, but so far this works fine like this. I still need to take it out for a really long ride to say for sure.

Dont judge me.

Many riders, Especially on Fizik Arione saddles, actually like the nose of the saddle tilted up 3 or 4 degrees, I'm one of them.
It let's them keep their hips rotated rearward and gives them the ability to straighten out their sacral/lumbar regions by "folding" forward and being able to smash your junk against something solid makes sure that you are recruting core muscles instead of dangling your thorax over the middle of the bike like a meat sack. Other saddles, like say, a Turbomatic get tilted and tweaked and moved a little bit to affect the same result. The angles, be they up or down are irrelevant, as long as they are within accepted norms.
Small variations from "the norm" i.e. horizontal are all that is needed, in either direction to make someone comfortable and efficient.

The general(steadfast really) rule is that if it looks wrong, it is wrong. How or why some people ignore that I'm not sure, but it just doesn't need to be this way.

I'd post a picture of a few of the bikes that make me crazy, but I don't want to be a bigger dick than I already am right now...

You what? Have a bigger dick than I do?

Hahahahaha - I always say that if you do not truly know what you are doing then leave it alone, i.e. level.

Your saddle is pointing down. Put a level on it. The tail end is higher than the nose.

I disagree...going from your photo your rails look to have 1-2 degrees of tilt upward and your saddle 1-2 degrees of tilt downward. Very slight amounts but that's my perception. And by the way I'm not trying to bag on your set up; it looks right to me and if it feels right to you then that's what matters.

As far as level rails::level saddle, I don't think that is the case. Level rails for most saddles means nose pointing down.

I would amend the OP just by saying that people should at least start with a level saddle, reasonable saddle-height and stem length, so at least they're going from a sane starting point. If through time and experience they feel that having their saddle pointing toward their front hub, a seatpost that looks like it belongs on an MTB and a flipped-and-slammed 140mm stem, then fine.

P.S. nice bike!

it could be, but who cares if it's dead level. that was my point. using a level to start with might be a good idea for a total novice, but mile and miles of riding tell you where your saddle belongs, not some rule of thumb.

It depends on the saddle and the amount of drop. I see lots of racing bikes with a slight nose down and lots of touring bikes with a slight nose up. I don't think it's legit to just say that every saddle on every bike should be perfectly level, it's wrong. Saddle shapes vary a lot especially.

If I put a level on this saddle tail to tip and adjusted accordingly my nuts would be destroyed. As it is, I can ride in the drops all day comfortably with a comfortable amount of weight on my hands:



That said there is a point where it just becomes jackass looking and impossible for it to be comfortable even though people claim it is. What I particularly hate is the saddle nose pointed way down and the hoods rotated up towards the sky. Some people don't know what they're doing and apparently don't care to learn.

I think it depends on the contour of the saddle too. Generally the body of the saddle should be level, but if the tail is up a smidge that's probably ideal. That's how AngryScientist's looks. Mine too.

p.s. Mazda above also. I think you are supposed to put the end of the level an inch or two in front of the tail of the saddle....but do whatever works for your body.

That's exactly how a Concor should be setup though. A seat that ramps up at the back is a different animal than something board flat pointed at the hub!
T

pps I think mine is level but the back may be up a smidge...

yeah son!

I hear what your saying. A microadjusting seat post should be standard equipment on every bike.

I've heard from a number of people that they actually like their Arione saddle point slightly down. I can't imagine why. When I had mine, I felt like that was the last thing you would want to do. Then again, that saddle never worked for me. I ride an SLR, and find it works best slightly nose up, like 1-3 degrees.

As for how much seat post, that can vary largely based on proportion. One rider could require 12cm+ of saddle to bar drop to achieve the same torso angle as another rider who only needs 5cm.

I'm not advocating that Steve point that seat down, for instance.
Gosh people used to try weird stuff at Roubaix...

For what it's worth I agree with the premise of your thread, but I feel like there are some major caveats that need to be addressed.

i too agree that saddle angle extremes are no good, but generalities are rarely true for every case. in any event, anyone who has significant miles in their legs usually has their fit pretty well figured out.

It does make you wonder what people are thinking when they post pics of their bikes online with super jack bar/saddle angles, they must be seeing other bikes right? They are almost always defensive when questioned too. Maybe it's an internet thing, I never see people IRL with such weird setups but I guess that's because these people aren't out putting miles on their bikes... lol...

i agree.

This could almost have the makings of a new "We're Going to Yell at You" thread.

It's hard to say. When I'm in the C&V forum, it seems like everyone is riding 2-3 frame sizes too big ...then I find out that more than half of them are over 60, and not 'typical' road cyclists either.

True, most people that put miles down eventually figure out that something is very wrong. I even did it back when I was doing triathlons. I started training for half Ironmans w/ lots of time on the bike and realized that I needed to change my position. I lowered the seat, leveled the saddle and all was good again.

Btw, datlas how tall are you? That axle to saddle length looks like it's 90cm or so - you have some long legs, son.