I agree that you should fix your hip rotation. However that means your position on the saddle will change drastically, as you won’t sit on your sit bones anymore (but probably on your public rami). So with that, you can restart your saddle progression…
Personally in your situation I would shell out for a fit session with a reputable fitter that has one of those fitting bikes. You are just too far off a good position imho. It will give you some cues for how you’re supposed to sit on a TT-bike, you can test a lot of positions in a short time, you can really feel the difference in saddle height if it changes while you’re on the bike, and you can probably retry a lot of saddles easily.
With these saddles, you are basically playing with just variations of a theme (split nose saddle). I would recommend checking into other snub nosed saddles that don’t have a split-nose design. Specialized Sitero, Fizik Mystica, possibly even a Specialzied Power saddle…a lot of options out there.
I wonder if you are sitting on the saddle wrong as well…Remember that you don’t sit on these saddles like a “normal” saddle. The nose should be farther back relative to the BB than a traditional saddle…essentially you want your “dangly down parts” to actually “dangle down” off the front of the saddle. This will also help with your hip rotation.
Your sit bones should still have contact with the saddle, but the weight should rotate forward onto the perineum…hence the reason the proper saddle is critical. Otherwise your delicate areas get crushed as you try and rotate…by getting them off the front, you can rotate forward more easily.
that is possible…but if he did, then he is not a good fitter and I would not go back to him. That is just lazy and shows he doesn’t understand his job.
I don’t really have a whole lot of direct CX fit experience…but the general rule is to go a bit more upright and a bit shorter vs a road fit. This helps get a bit more weight off the front wheel, improving traction and steering in technical areas.
Decided to slam my stem, which amounted to removing 2cm of spacers. Thought I might try to force myself to adapt over winter on the trainer. Good idea or bad?
I’m actually more comfortable with a slammed stem but many folk aren’t and if you are not. comfortable you probably wont get the same power out. It may work for you too, it may not; its nigh impossible to say.
I did an hour Z2 ride with it after dropping and was pleasantly surprised that I really couldn’t feel any difference, at least on the brake hoods where I spend 95% of my riding. In the drops I could feel the drop more. With that said, I’m getting some new bars soon with 5mm less reach and 5mm less drop, so the new position may work out fine. We’ll see with some harder workouts next week.
Depends. People at my LBS are shocked by my road position, then the shop owner says not to worry, I’m a time trial specialist, so I am used to being so bent over
Be sure to see if it’s closing off your hip angle enough to sap power, as if you are losing 30 watts, but only saving 10, then you might have other bike fit tweaks to make to be able to properly utilize a heavily slammed position.
It can work, but there is a bit more finesse required for some people, as you are closer and closer to a tt position as it drops.
I haven’t found a difference in workouts slammed, as hard stuff I will be more upright, the real difference is ability to produce threshold level sustained efforts in position while slammed.
Be wary of a compensations. Hip impingements are likely to trigger, and/or you may suffer from weak core/glutes which will offset some of that load to your quads and lower back and you’ll feel strained. Best to supplement with stretching and isolation exercises pre-ride to ensure appropriate activation and to not count on cycling alone to assimilate to the new position.
Try doing all your rides in the drops, you’ll quickly flesh out your pain-points.
If you just removed the spacers, and had a good fit previously, then you have now closed your hip angle. To compensate, you should nudge your saddle forward a touch and raise your saddle slightly.
Again, that is if you had a good fit previously. If your position wasn’t ideal, then you may be able to just go with the stem adjustment. See how it feels and adjust as necessary.
Made some small saddle position adjustments tonight and they seemed okay for a 90min trainer ride. I’ll play with it a little more after Turkey Day when my A race is finished and there’s time to adjust to any changes. I’ll come back to this post later for some comparisons.
@Power13 thanks for describing how to sit on a TT saddle. Based on this I can definitely say I’m not sitting on it correctly. Most of my cues are from Chad’s in-ride workout text. It will probably take some time to unravel this for TT.
I would say your saddle is too far forward. I had the same issues on my aeroad, but I had the seat right forward as I have stronger quads and weak glutes. Took me strengthing my glutes (and core) and moving the saddle back to deal with it. Now the saddle is as far back as it goes and I don’t have any issues with numb hands
Hi all, relatively quick one. I’ve recently had a back injury which has led me to trying to have a much flatter lower back, and instead rotating at the hip. In a case like this, does your effective inseam change? And therefore should your saddle height change? No other changes, just the rotation of the pelvis.
Have a question regarding muscle soreness that I’m thinking has something to do with my fit. I dropped my stem a cm (originally 2cm but added a spacer back). Did the Kolie Moore baseline test yesterday and rode for 48min at 305W average, right around 100% FTP based on a ramp test a month ago. Here’s the question. As soon as I hopped off the bike I had the worst muscle aches/soreness I’ve ever had, in a weird spot. From the picture below, it feels like pain in the semitendonosus and/or gracilis, though it could be deep glute Maximus. It’s more medial though. I’ve never had soreness here, even when lifting heavy. And it was almost instant, but feels like DOMS. Could my fit have caused this? 1cm drop doesn’t sound like a ton, and I didn’t feel different while riding and didn’t feel like I had trouble putting out the power. Curious what you guys think. Only change to fit was dropping the stem.
Edit: workout was yesterday and I’m still walking funny today. It’s weird because I’ve dealt with muscle soreness and DOMS in the past from lifting or working out, but never in this spot or this soon after the workout. Maybe I just went too deep.
You probably used your muscles in a different way then they are used to. If you didn’t have problems while riding I would just keep like it is and just give a bit of time for your muscles to get use to this new position.
Forced to ride inside today, and my SRAM 12-speed Tarmac is not compatible with 2017 Kickr direct-drive.
Mounted my city hybrid Giant Escape on the Kickr / InsideRide setup.
Had a professional fit on Tarmac in August, and wanted to use that as a reference for the Giant Escape.
Used a level to measure from center of crank to back of seat on Tarmac. Then did the same on Giant Escape. Also measured from floor to middle of seat. Picture to illustrate what I did:
Been awhile since I used Zwift, is that the correct pairing of Kickr as both power and controllable? I’ll may end up using RGT but I didn’t have my laptop while setting things up during an early lunch.
