Paul J

I've got a fit question. We recently shipped our more regularly used tandem frame back to the manufacturer and are back on our bushnell. I moved the carbon 46cm Profile Design Cobra Wing over to the Bushnell. These are just a little narrower then the original 47cm cow horn bars and when we started riding the left bar end was just grazing my left hip. As we were riding and talking about this my wife mentioned that I'm not sitting on the center of the saddle and I'm more to the left on the saddle. We looked on my single and I'm favoring the left side on that too. Any thoughts on what might be causing this? I thought I'd start here with friends before going over the the bike fit forum.

Thanks in advance for your ideas and thoughts!

StephenH

You're supposed to be symmetrical outwardly and your bicycle saddle and handlebars are supposed to be also. But "supposed to be" doesn't mean it is. You can measure your saddle and handelbars and get them centered. Using handlebars as a guide, you can adjust yourself. If that's not comfortable, change it so it is, and don't worry too much about it. I know one lady that has one pedal at an odd angle, she's faster than me, so I figured out some stuff like that doesn't matter too much.

VaultGuru

Assuming your seat and handlebars are centered, you might want to get a good bike fitter to take a look at your position on the bike. One of your legs could be slightly shorter than the other which will cause you to be off center. Another possibility is that the sitbone area is more rounded and causes you to slip to one side (Fizik Aerione or Aliente's - rounded vs. Specialized Roman Evo - platform). I now have a shim under my right cleat and am riding a Specialized saddle that is more like a platform under my sitbones. Problem solved. Some variance of the above may help you

merlinextraligh

If it's not causing you any joint pain or pain in the rear, I wouldn't worry about it. Some people like their seat turned just a touch to one side or the other.

The last thing I'd do is change a naturally occurring position, that was working, to clear the stokers bars.

If it ain't broke; don't fix it.

You could avoid your hip grazing the stoker bars by sliding the bars to the left by a couple of millimeters, or go back to the original 47cm bars.

qspencer

I second that. When I was younger I noticed that the saddle that I had put many thousands of miles on had twisted its nose a couple of mm to one side. I tried to adjust it back so it was "straight" and it always eventually went back to where it was. I eventually concluded I may have some slight body asymmetry and the saddle had found its optimal position.

Paul J

I wife was away this past weekend so I got a long ride on my single bike. As I was staying more aware it seemed I was fairly centered on that bike. With some time on my hands with her away I centered and leveled everything about her bars and when we had the chance to get out last evening we noticed I was more centered on the bike now. I wonder if having the bars just a little out of line might have moved her center of gravity to one side and I was compensating to keep the bike balanced. Using a three-piece stoker stem you have lots of ways to not be lined-up. :-) we will see on our longer rides planned for this weekend.

Carbonfiberboy 

There's a thread about this over in Fitting: https://www.bikeforums.net/fitting-yo...ne-saddle.html
which may or may not apply to you.

Paul J

Thanks for sharing, this was an interesting read. I think I'm good, it looks like I was compensating for a balance issue with the stoker's set-up. I didn't do a good job is adjusting her set-up when we moved back to our other bike and now we are humming along with this set-up.

I think I'll need to find another set of these Profile Cobra bars to match both bikes as I don't think she is going to be happy with a standard profile bar going forward. :-)