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Is there an optimum seat height that XC racers use ?? I mean you,ll want to be able to stretch your legs out for the long climbs , but you also need to be centered down lowish to control the bike through the gnarly stuff , YET dropper posts appear to be more popular on trail style bikes and not on XC bikes why is this ? and where do I want my seat to be idealy ?
And do you lot stick your backside right out the back on the steep stuff EVEN if your seat post is high up.
Is there a dedicated XC racer website, with tips ,advice etc . Thank You.
true xc race is as high as poss for max efficiency. then worry about handling later.
you'll notice a whole lot of racers having SERIOUS issues on tech stuff thanks to bonkers light bikes, skinny skinny tyres and stupidly high saddles.
RACE!
dedicated XC racer website...
www.xcracer.com
weightweenies is a racer site.
You don't want it too high it will cause injury.
Get it high enough that you put good leg stretch but with out rocking your hips.
Buy a goniometer and get set up yourself. Thats a tool that measures the angle of your leg at the knee and will give you the correct length.
Place you heal on the pedal and adjust your seat until your leg is completely straight. Then clip in and you should find your leg is slightly bent. This is a good way to ensure you aren't over stretching but don't have the seat to high to effect handling.
How high does your seat need to be to get off and run down anything slightly difficult?
😉
I set mine about 12-13mm lower than my full road race bike setup. But unless you know your road setup (had a proper fitting etc) that's not much use to you! You also need to know your pedal stack heights on the 2 bikes to calculate the difference.
What Hopk1ns said ^^
I'm with convert.
Start with what Hopkins said and then go up or down from there as you feel is right.
Droppers are fine for general XC use but add too much weight for racing. Integrated seat posts are much more common, save a little weight and faffing but no option to adjust.
How often do you adjust the seat post when out and about anyway? Even on my big bike I very rarely bother, I can do the DH courses at Inners with the seat in the 'up for climbing' position (old school 5" coil sprung Marin BTW), just feels wrong with the seat down.
what hopkins said is best you can do a proper mathsy thing but the heal think is fairly close really.
weightweenies is a racer site
No it's not, it's a site filled with predominently overweight Europeans with far too much money who think that a 1200g carbon rimmed wheelset suits their 120kg girth, for those who actually ride. XCRacer is a far better place for XC racers!
I set mine about 12-13mm lower than my full road race bike setup.
I run mine almost exactly the same as on the road.
Try Hopkins method and go from there. You get used to descending with the saddle up, despite the snide comments a lot of the top XC guys would destroy most of the fat middle aged IT bods on here, even with their 6" of skills compensation 🙂
I dropped mine slightly on the road recently. I run all my bikes at the same height.
Road height is perfectly manageable off-road.
dropper posts appear to be more popular on trail style bikes and not on XC bikes why is this ? and where do I want my seat to be idealy ?
Its because most trail bike riders are
and they are literally too fat and lazy to get off and put their saddle down.fat middle aged IT bods
Road height is perfectly manageable off-road.
Well, that rather depends on your roadie saddle height doesn't it! My contention is that most leisure road riders and mtbers that also ride on the road, as well as quite a few club riders use too low a height for maximum efficiency. It would be very possible for them to use the same off road. My road height moved up quite a lot when I started riding with the WCPP group and getting a bit more formal coaching and power and video analysis.
To counter my own argument my off road height has edged up over the years as I've learnt to (literally) work around it.
Everything njee said.
You will make up the most gains on climbs so you should set it up for climbing. Dropper posts are over 300 extra grams so that's why they're not popular! I agree with that said above that many people have too low a saddle. Also make sure your cleats are setup correctly, as this can make a big difference.
THANX Everyone who replied - The "Hopk1ns" method seems a simple enough place to start, will go from there.
Any other tips greatly appreciated.