Sports Questions and Answers
How illustrious should my bike form be?
I've read a few articles that say if you should lean against a wall and peddle backwards next to your heels then you should elevate the seat so that your heel solitary just touches the pedal on the downstroke. Any thoughts on this? does it fashion a difference if you have clip ins? ( I don't )Answers: In broad the heel on the pedal idea is a standard starting point. Everyone have their preference for exact form height inside a fairly rigid range. The conception is that your saddle should be high satisfactory to allow you to pedal with only just a little knees bend at the bottom of your pedal stroke while never locking out your knees. This makes for a more powerful, smaller quantity tiring riding position. You ride with the ball of your feet on the pedals.
If your saddle's too large you will rock on the saddle making for a very humiliated ride and can injure your butt and knees. If your saddle's too low, it will put a lot of pressure on your knees and could motivation injury riding hard or long. Also it's much harder to pedal next to your knees bent too much.
The vast majority of populace ride with saddle far too low. Some people even consider you should be able to touch your foot on the ground while seated - that's a sure sign your saddle is too low.
it depnds on how tall u r i would ust articulate have your leg extended on the down stroke, but not locked out.
also. when you are contained by mid stroke, there should be a 90 level bend in your leg
you should almost own your knee fully extended on your down stroke. For some accurate info go to http://sheldonbrown.com/saddles.html#hei... Good request for information Joe - I am currently re-evaluating mine!
The 'Heel method' which you describe is certainly the one most commonly used, It's a righteous starting point but I'm not convinced it's the most effective.
The '109% method' (based on inseam measurement) doesn't work for me ! - Nor does the 'LeMond method'
The orb of the foot on the pedals, with a slight bend at the knees on full extention is correct ( As M R also states,- various issues can arise if incorrect).
If you renovate saddle or pedal type, you should always check your form height.
I am playing around next to a protractor at the moment ('Holmes method') - trying to find the optimum knee angles, beckon me picky if you like but I do ride some thorny miles and want to get the best out of my cycling whilst avoiding injury.
Do as MR say for general riding though!
Hope this help.
EDIT: Matt Kevin - it's interesting to note that you are "really proportional between legs and torso" ?? (whatever that means) and your friend "rised his seat" whilst you lowered yours??
Before you start calling serious cycling science 'ridiculous'!
Consider the reality that companies such as Litespeed often nick upwards of two hours to size you for a new bike !!
There are variables on the subject of proper saddle positioning such as length of tibia and femur (although you seem to have an idea that arm length is important to saddle altitude??).
Thanks for your opinion though, as near all contributors.
EDIT2: Mark S - It's nice to see that you own taken some time to evaluate seat loftiness, The reason I'm playing beside mine is, I have purely read of a study that claims too low a seat largeness can decrease time to nouns by as much as 12%!
As they say "Every little helps" - Cheers!
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What size is the frame, and what style of form do you use. The dimensions are slightly different for the newer, I-beam saddles. I rise it as dignified as it's comfortable to me. I don't use any methods to do so because- thing that works for you might not work for others.
It depends on like mad of things- what is the balance of your body- what make the most of your height- the legs or the torso? what size your bike is? what size your bike is proportionally to your body? how long are your arms? what type of pedals do you use? and so on.
In my opinion, the stage of your seat must be as lofty as it feels pious to you personally. Without going cavernous into findind the right method to rise the seat (ridiculous), after some time you'll integer out what works the best for you.
like... I rode within a team and my mate rised his form as high as possible, I used it much lower, although we're totally duplicate height, the individual thing- his legs make most of the altitude while I'm really proportional between my legs and torso so I didn't need the form as high as him simple
beaming ridin'
Use the "heel test" that you've described as a starting point. A "point to ponder" is that most people I know similar to their seats a bit sophisticated than that. A seat to be exact just right when starting feel too low by about 1/4 inch after they've loosened up. However, YMMV.
You want to surface comfortable throught the entire pedal stroke. If you feel that your hips are rocking when you pedal, your form is too high.
HTH
In nonspecific the "heel method" will get you pretty close. There are profoundly more factors within setting up the saddle than simply the height. Even pro's will regularly joggle with their setups. Back surrounded by the eighties I was a appendage of a group study at the OTC that measured the effect of saddle height on power output. The findings be very surprising contained by that it showed that even fairly significant change in saddle point, made no noticeable alter in power output. Changes of a centimeter or more contained by elite cyclists made no difference. After years of race at an elite horizontal, and always tinkering near my setup, I have found that the setup of the shoes, cleats, and pedals, are more key than the setup of the saddle. Use the "heel method". It will get you close plenty. On the other hand, getting your shoes setup correctly, is a adjectives lot more difficult. I could write a book on that subject.