Seat height

ghostface

What's the general rule of thumb regarding how high your seat should be? Or is it dependent of what type trail you are riding?

I have heard that you should be able to just touch the ground with your toes when sat on the seat? I find this very uncomfortable, mainly because I'm a crappy rider and need confidence that if anything should go t#*s up I can use my feet to stabilise.

supersonic

There is no general rule - whatever feels most comfortable. Forget all these silly equations the roadies have.

That said... to high and your hips will rock side to side. You don't want you knee to be locked at full extension. Too low and it can rob you of power. But comfort is still king.

nicklouse

Read this http://www.sheldonbrown.com/saddles.html#adjustment

brindlescoops

To be fair since I have started my seat has slowly got higher and higher. I cant even come close to putting both feet down when sat on the saddle, but any less is harder work pedalling on the easy stuff. Get a dropper post, you can have it nice and high, then out the way for the fun stuff.

dhobiwallah

ghostface wrote:

I have heard that you should be able to just touch the ground with your toes when sat on the seat?.

Yep - that's what I was taught in 1979 on my Raleigh Grifter :roll: And every bike was essentially the same shape (Except the chopper 8) )

Totally irrelevant to MTB though. Seat height adjustment alters the distance from the saddle to the bottom bracket (effectively the pedals). MTB geometries vary wildly and the distance from the BB to the ground also varies so adjusting your seat to match the ground leaves the pedals entirely out of the equation which doesn't really work 8)

So what/how are you riding?

XC or long distances need pedalling efficiency and there are tonnes of roadie-esque methods of working this out - essentially your leg should be nearly straight at the bottom of the pedal stroke.

Techy downhill stuff you will be stood up for, but may well need to dab your foot in a hurry, so you can drop the saddle lower/out of the way.

Half-way house? Buy a £150 dropper seatpost; or if you are just starting just lower your seat manually before you start a tech section and put it back up afterwards.

Touching the ground with your tip-toes doesn't work for either. If you are XC-ing you shouldn't really need to touch the ground anyway (go clipped in for extra power transfer). If you are riding tech stuff and need to put a foot down you need to put it down properly (and unless you are tarmac the bit of the ground where your foot is going may be in a dip and quite a bit lower than your extended foot from your seating position anyway) :shock:

felix.london

I use about 4 different seat heights on a regular basis (now I have the dropper post );

- all the way up for tarmac climbing

- all the way down for steep descents, park & jumping

- nearly all the way up for fireroads & XC climbing

- about half way for twisty single track

I use SPD's so measurement from seat to ground is fairly irrelevant for me as my feet don't come off the pedals

bails87

Also, when you want to put a foot down, slide forward off the saddle. It's much comfier and a lot easier.

YeehaaMcgee

felix.london wrote:

I use SPD's so measurement from seat to ground is fairly irrelevant for me as my feet don't come off the pedals

Seat to ground it a pointelss measurement anyway, unless you want to knee yourself in the chin on every stroke.

Before I had a dropper post, I used to set the seat at a happy compromise height, which would give me "ok" pedalling efficiency, and "ok" manouverability. But I'd still drop the post for fun, technical sections.

With the dropper post I can now have the post at the right height (personal thing) for anything I come across. But I still do drop the post almost entirely into the frame when I'm mucking about with some freeriding, or DH.

IT66T

I generally set my Seat height with the pedal at the bottom of the stroke and the heel of my foot on the pedal so when riding basic cross country i have a slight bend at the knee but when doing down hill or technical stuff i have my seat set a couple of inches up from the seat tube lol .

cycle monster

With my last two bikes my LBS "fitted" me to the bike and on both occasions it felt as if the saddle was too high, so I lowered them. Gradually the saddle height on both has been increased to the height recommended in the first place. In the meantime I have been on a mtb course. I was told to lower my saddle and keep out of it most of the time as it is easier to get into the correct downhill position for descents with the saddle down. I have no problem getting my considerable weight back with the saddle up and find the subsequent climbs easier whilst seated. We are all different, bikes are different, as are terrain and conditions. Experience will get you where you need to be, there seems to be no foolproof formula.

MyNameIsEarl

bails87 wrote:

Also, when you want to put a foot down, slide forward off the saddle. It's much comfier and a lot easier.

I can't afford a dropper post at the moment, so found this simple advice very useful. Thanks!

Also, as others found, I set the seat height too low (lack of confidence), so I kept raising it until there was a slight bend at the knee at the bottom of the stroke. Feels okay now.

Greer_

BrindleScoops wrote:

To be fair since I have started my seat has slowly got higher and higher. I cant even come close to putting both feet down when sat on the saddle, but any less is harder work pedalling on the easy stuff.

+1. I can't touch the ground yet can still dab my foot if I'm falling. My seat used to be really short but the first time I went out in a group they moved my seat up a good few inches. And it made it a fair bit easier! Since then it's just gotten higher and I can still manage jumps and downhill sections properly (in my mind) without lowering it.

Daz555

I like my saddle nice and high for proper pedalling but always make sure I can get my arse over the back when I need to - last thing you need is your saddle kicking you in the backside and sending you over the bars. On my FSRxc I cannot even get my tiptoes down so have to slide off the saddle when I stop - or stop by a stump or rock of course!

I also have 3 dots on my seatpost in permanent marker so that I can move it down easily from normal pedalling, to a bit downhill (some seated pedalling), to properly downhill (no seated pedalling).