Why Your Bicycle Saddle Height Is Important

Setting the right saddle height is essential for comfort, efficiency and avoiding injury.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Hannah Reynolds, fitness editor at Cycling Weekly magazine. Today I'm at Bespoke

00:17Cycling's flagship store in Canary Wharf with expert bike fitter Ben Hallam, who's going

00:22to tell us a little bit about how to set our saddle height. So where do we start?

00:26Well Hannah, there's two ways that we can get roughly in the right ballpark in terms of saddle

00:31height. The first uses your inseam and the second we can do on the bike itself. For the first method

00:37what we want to do is find your inseam measurement. So I find the quickest and simplest way to do this

00:43is using a ruler. Just stand roughly shoulder width apart, pop the ruler between your legs

00:48just as high as it'll go, keeping it nice and level. We want to take a measurement from the

00:53side and see how high that is. So that's 7.55. Once we have that measurement we want to times

01:02that number by 0.887. So we want to transfer this measurement across to the bike. We're

01:09measuring from the centre of the bottom bracket to the top of the saddle.

01:16Another way to get in the general ballpark in the right place in terms of saddle height

01:21is to use the bike itself. In this method if you put your heel on the pedal at the bottom of the

01:28pedal stroke, like so, and then raise the saddle until your knee is locked out and straight and

01:37then clip back in, we're going to be in roughly the right ballpark. Now this doesn't take into

01:49account how long your foot is, so again this is just to get in roughly the right position.

01:55So how do I know if my saddle height is now right? Well what we're looking for at the bottom of the

02:01pedal stroke is a soft knee bend, so roughly about 150 degrees. But your saddle height is only one

02:08part of your bike fit? Certainly. There are many elements that make up the fit, be it cleats,

02:16saddle, bar position, and each of them are interrelated and changing one can have an effect

02:22on the position of the others. So this is why going and seeing a professional bike fitter

02:27gives a comprehensive solution to all of these elements. So how do I know if my saddle height is

02:33wrong? You may be getting knee pain. This is a very common complaint from saddle height issues.

02:39Now a very general rule of thumb is that if the pain is on the front of the knee,

02:44then your saddle height might be a little bit low. If the pain is at the back of the knee,

02:48then you might have your saddle set slightly too high. In this occasion I would probably suggest

02:54moving the saddle roughly three to four millimetres maximum to see if this helps

02:59alleviate the problems. If you have any more questions on how to set your saddle height,

03:04leave a comment at the bottom of this page.