Usually sliding the seat toward tips balance toward the front which enlists the calves for support . Too far back and you end up reaching for stroke if the saddle isn’t lowered enough which also strains the calf .
It depends on physiology. I suffered from a lot of pain in my calves and behind the knee. I ended up moving my cleats back, raising my saddle and moving the saddle all the way back and the pain is gone now.
This is only based on what I see but you seem to be really far back, which impinges your hip and seems to inhibit you from rolling your pelvis forward. Or maybe it’s the saddle that causes it. I’m the same height, 30"/76cm inseam and my seat height is set at 690mm with 170mm cranks. I have a Prologo Dimension saddle which is set I believe 32 or 32mm back from the BB.
Hi everyone. Has anyone ever had issues with their adductor muscles being sore when pushing hard during a ride? From a diagram I’d say it’s the gracilis or adductor magnus on the inside of my thigh. I get it just on the right side. Pretty happy with my saddle height so I’m thinking maybe cleat position but don’t really know what to change, if anything. Thanks.
As noted above, your saddle is really far back. REALLY far. Where is the seatclamp on the rails?
I’d also wager that your stem is too long, but first and foremost, you have to get your saddle positioned correctly. A good bike fit starts with proper saddle positioning. Everything else comes from that.
The saddle is almost all the way back on the 20mm seat post. According to the UCI rules, saddle has to be at least 5cm behind the bottom bracket and mine is around 8cm. I have tried moving the saddle forward but it does not work for me- I experience a lot of leg pain. Is there any disadvantage advantage to it, in terms of performance?. My FTP is currently really high and I’m looking for any additional gains.
If you aren’t a professional, or racing at the highest levels of amateurs, UCI rules should not apply to you. All the way back on a 20mm offset post is way, way back. If anyone really needed their saddle in that position, their bike is too small.
If you have leg pain when you move it forward, then saddle height is likely an issue as well. When you move it forward, you should them raise the saddle a similar amount.
As for performance, I don’t know if it is costing you watts, but it is absolutely impacting your aerodynamics. You can’t get your back flat / upper body down because you aren’t rotating your hips forward. You are basically a big chute catching air in that position.
Try moving the saddle forward and up and see how that feels. Do it in small amounts if that works for you.
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I moved the seat forward quite a bit and increased the height too. The setback is 5.5cm now compared to 7 cm as before. I just have to test it and adjust to it. Thanks.
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100% you need to move some things around in major ways… And the UCI guidelines would be the absolute last worry if I were you. Unless you’re on the podium of some high level UCI sanctioned races, you’re in the clear. (I also believe that you’re allowed one morphological exemption based on anatomy, I know that it applies to saddle fore-aft for TT, but I assume road as well) As mentioned, you’re saddle looks way too far back. Based on the top photo, notice the position of the center-point you made of your knee. Your knee is “behind” your entire foot(green line). This means that in what is supposed to be the most powerful portion of your pedal stoke(which is just prior to this photo in your stroke), you’re forcing yourself to push diagonally towards the front of your bike(see yellow arrow), rather than straight down. And with that, you’re then not using gravity, and your body weight, to help the quads. What you’re then having to do is “pull” with your arms in an attempt to drive your hips and glutes forward. This in turn won’t allow you to relax your upper body or back, so you’re not opening up your hips at all, as you’re requiring that tension to have something to back up your pedal pressure.
So, to start… Move your saddle way forward. I’d say 40mm as a starting point. You mention that you encounter pain when you do, so make sure you raise it as you move it forward. If you’re comfortable with the saddle “height” you have now, understand that you’ll have to physically raise your saddle a few mm for every centimeter you move it forward(this is due to the fact that you’re measuring saddle height along a ~74degree seat tube, so by essentially moving that plane more vertical you’re shortening the horizontal distance that plane covers).
See the second photo I attached. The red line is your current fit. The blue line doesn’t change the length of any of the lines, but simply pivots the whole leg forward, and then allows the upper body to adjust accordingly. Notice how much more open your hip is, how “on top” of the pedal stroke you look, and how much more solid your shoulder angle is, as well as your forearm and wrist…
With that change, you might have to tweak your bar position, but I bet it won’t be far off from ideal. Keep in mind that it’ll feel weird for the first couple rides, but I can assure you that it won’t be worse off for you than where you’re at now…
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Thank you for the detailed evaluation. As I mentioned before, I moved my seat forward and just finished a 4 hr ride and did not have any pain. Riding in the drops feels more comfortable now and I feel that I can produce more power on the downstroke (it feels like there is more resistance on the bottom of the pedal stroke).
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All the way back on a 20mm offset post is way, way back. If anyone really needed their saddle in that position, their bike is too small.
I am not looking to start an argument but wanted to add my take on that statement. Having any equipment item set at the very limit would usually suggest reviewing the frame size - for example seatpost near max / min extension, or a full stack of steerer spacers / negative rise stem with no topcap.
There are however huge variances between individual’s in terms of form and function that means sometimes extremes are best. Likewise equipment itself can vary, usually by design, that leads to extreme positioning.
I have marginally short legs with long body and arms but am extremely flexible through most of the spine and neck. There are some old injuries to consider that mean a slightly curved spine is more comfortable than straight, which impacts my function in supporting upper body and arms. Due to this an atypically large amount of setback is required to unweight my hands, it then helps with the reach, and then I appreciate reasonable bar drop to enable a curved spine. In my case I use an original Specialized Romin which has ‘built in’ loads of setback, and sitbones are placed well back on the saddle top. I therefore tend to be in the middle on a 20mm setback post - but put something like a Fizik Arione on and I am looking at loads of setback for the same overall height.
The other side of the coin is equipment, especially in this case saddles, where the shape of the surface, length and position of rails (especially indicated clampable range) , seatpost clamp, and seattube angle all interlink to give a useable range, which in turn may mean certain combinations end up at the ends of the range to support even a very ‘typical’ position.
If you take an older Specialized design like the Toupe versus say a Power Arc (both have similar flare shape for thigh clearance, but the Power Arc has a very short nose and shorter tail). Specalized suggest the Power Arc nose is 2-3cm back versus traditional saddles - putting it there versus the Toupe aligns sitbone position and the front saddle rail, so everything else the same that would likely be the position you would place the saddle.
That might work if your saddle rails were near the front of the Toupe range, but if in the middle you might be at or beyond the limit on the Power Arc rails, indeed if a 20mm setback post worked you might need 30 or 40mm now.
This example is flawed as the concept of the Power Arc is to enable rotation of the position forward, get a lower front end, and the solution above is use a new position and a seatpost with less setback, but as more bikes come with similar seat angles, continue with ~20mm setback post but a short nosed saddle it illustrates how much two items of equipment for similar applications can be totally different and result in issues on something like seatpost offset.
On my preferred saddle, the original Romin which is naturally very setback in terms of seating position on the top , I might need a 10mm or inline seatpost on a slightly slack seat tubed bike, with the inline bringing the clamp into the middle of the rails.
Photo for illustration - Spesh Power Arc 143 (2020) on top of a Toupe 143 (2010ish?).
The Power Arc nose is setback ~3cm which aligns the front rail and approx sitting position - the front max clamp position is virtually the same. Red dot is the rearmost clamping point on the rails. Power Arc saddle stack is slighly more than Toupe but even so if you were towards the rear of range on a Toupe a Power Arc would be a challenge on the same setback seatpost/frame seat angle.
edited for clarity on what photo showed and example in text of 3rd saddle.
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Well noted, my only disclaimer would be to not focus on the front of the saddle rails for the comparison. While you were using it as a visual for this specific case, just as a note to others that there’s a better way to figure out where your saddle needs to be when swapping to a new saddle, with different rail position, or even more relevant, when going to a snub nose saddle from traditional. Obviously you’re limited by your seat post setback depending on how long the clamp friendly portion of the rails are.
The trick is to measure your existing saddle at the point where it flares to a certain width, and then make sure the new saddle gets to the same width at the same distance from the bottom bracket/bars/fixed point. From recollection, the standard number used was 38mm(1.5"). This point should typically be about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way back from the nose, so it avoids having to guess how much of the saddle nose the manufacturer decided to lop off…
So mark that with a piece of blue masking tape, and measure to either the back of your handlebars, or the center bolt of your steerer compression cap. Then on your new saddle, find the 38mm wide part, and mark it with blue tape again, and adjust fore/aft position until you hit the same distance as your prior saddle.
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Good info, the real reference points are where and how (angles and levels) you contact something.
It would be interesting to use a totally different saddle in comparison like maybe a Cobb with no curve (cone shaped), or a Fizik Arione which shares the rough flare but is dead flat on top allowing you a less fixed position. I just had that photo to hand (someone on another forum broke their Toupe and was recommended a Power Arc, I used that to make sure they could cater for it on the seatpost/frame combo with the differing rail length).
For reference those two saddles are photographed in a position where the flare alignws and likely contact positions are similar, plus there is an interesting optical illusion going on in the photo due to the lense being close to the object.
I think we are in agreement…sure, there are always a few people who fall outside of the guidelines, but for the vast majority of people, if you are at the max of any fit parameter, something is probably off with the bike size.
I’d also add that Mat90’s body type is a bit lanky, which can make fitting tough, but he has to get his saddle position sorted before other decisions can be made. A good fit starts with saddle position.
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Yup we all look to be in agreement 
sort the arse, sort the feet and the rest falls into a set of parameters of
I am really conscious of coming across as a **** online and if I might be seen to be disagreeing with everyone for the sake of it, mainly as I am a total pedant.
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Here is an update to my recent changes based on the suggestions here:
I was obsesssing about this UCI rule of 5 cm for some reason which did not allow me to get comfortable on the bike. I moved my seat forward (offset is around 3 cm now) and lowered the seat 0.5cm. I am much more comfortable on the bike and have no issues riding in the drops. Pedalling seems easier now and more fluid. I do not experience any muscle pain.
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From my recent bike fit it showed that my aerobar pads need to be raised with a few decent centimeters. Unfortunately I cannot find additional spacers (or ‘riser stacks’) anywhere. Perhaps someone who’s following this thread can help out. I’d be incredibly thankful.
Looks MUCH better.
Do you have the ability to raise your stem / bars? I think that should be your next step…your arms are very extended.
I think the main point here is that the bike fit needs to be adapted for each rider, each bike, their goals and events. Like you mentioned, blindly applying a known bike fit from one bike to the next isn’t going to work well all the time. Get on the bike, have someone with a good eye watch you ride - preferably on a trainer first, and be willing to make adjustments as needed.
I think my general answer to this question would be, yes. I used to run my saddle height a hair lower prior to having a dropper on all my mountain bikes. I’ve bumped it up since then, but honestly it wasn’t that much of a change in actual height.
It’s still got to feel good right? You don’t want to be riding around super extended just because you can.
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Man you look so much “stronger” and more comfortable. With as far back as you were on the bike before, you looked like the bike was taking you along for the ride. Glad you’ve gotten a bit more comfortable!
My only other suggestion, and it might not be fully warranted(with limited photo evidence), but based on those two new photos, and the angle of your wrists(rolled inwards), I bet you’d get along nicely with some narrower bars. The photo of you in the drops makes it especially evident that you’re arms naturally want to be inboard a bit more, which is why we can see the tops off all of your fingers, versus them being wrapped under and around the drops. With this, you also then have to roll your hands around the bars when you need to grab the levers or shift. The old “width of your shoulders determines width of your bars” is largely a fallacy, and narrow bars can provide a ton of comfort for some people.
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