Time trial position

mclarent

I just added some tt bars to my bike on the turbo, problem is I keep kneeing myself in the chest. I have a big rib cage (ia la Hoy). Is rasing my seat the only solution?

milese

The seat position needs to be determined by your legs and knee angle, is obviously worth making sure that its right for you, but I dont think your chest should have any bearing on that.

What about raising the bars and / or altering the stem length and rise?

Dess1e

You could try moving your saddle forward to open up the hip angle.

Bhima

Yes, move forward. As an experiment - move as far back as you can go on the saddle and try and pedal in the TT position - you can't! As a general rule, you should move forward as you get lower to compensate for the decreased angle of your legs and back.

mclarent

Cool, thanks guys. Don't really want to flip my stem if possible (won't go into the reasons), but will try moving the seat forwards.

rake

the kops(knee over pedal spindle) is said to be hot air by some. its just handy to get you in the right ball park. it has no direct effect on your pedalling if your knee isnt over the spindle with respect to gravity. gravity orientation makes no difference to geometry as you rotate the seatpost about the bottom bracket ( look at a recumbent ). as you move the seat forward you will need to bring it up a bit to keep your seat height constant, imagine rotating the whole seat tube forward. if its angled back the seat will move forward and upwards.this will keep your leg geometry the same never mind gravity.

markos1963

I usually find raising the saddle a cm or two and sliding it forward two cm works for me pretty good. This rotates your hips into a better TT position and you should be able to to get comfortable on the bars.

MichaelW

Assuming you have a good saddle position for normal drop bars you should think of the saddle as rotating about the bottom bracket, thereby keeping your pedal-saddle distance the same. The saddle should remain level of course.
There are limits to the amount of forward rotation for UCI-controlled events but triathletes have much more freedom and use much more rotation.
Forward rotation puts more weight onto your arms. You can the play about with the bar extension and vertical position. You may find that the lowest position is not necessarily the most efficient when your arms are narrow and close together.