Cycling is a wonderful sport. Environmentally friendly and gentle on your joints, it builds conditioning and you get to enjoy the outdoors while you're exercising. A poorly positioned bike saddle, however, can spoil the fun and turn a potentially memorable bike ride into one you would rather forget. When you're adjusting your seat, keep in mind that the ideal height will depend on your inseam as well as other factors such as your riding style, seat shape and cycling ambition.
Why Seat Height Matters
A perfectly adjusted bicycle saddle will allow you to pedal freely and powerfully. You should be able to extend your legs to about 80 to 90 percent of full extension during a down stroke. You legs should never fully straighten during pedaling. If your seat is too low, you will put extra strain on your knees. If your seat is too high, you're putting extra pressure on the area between your legs. Gregory Broderick concludes in an abstract called "Bicycle Seats and Penile Blood Flow: Does the Type of Saddle Matter," that too much pressure on the crotch might impact your health and cause boils, numbness, incontinence, infections or impotence.
With an improperly adjusted seat, you are also hurting your bike-handling abilities and your balance. You also won't be able to utilize your full leg strength, and your trips will exhaust you faster. You should also be able to gently place your toes on the ground, so you can steady your bicycle when you have to stop. This is mostly a safety measure, but it also helps you in areas like inner-city traffic where you have to stop your bike regularly.
Seat Adjustment
The single most important factor to find the proper seat height is your inseam, but other aspects such as foot length or thickness of shoe soles matter as well. You can find a good starting point for the fine-tuning process by just standing next to your bike. Move the seat up or down until it hits you about 2 to 3 inches above your crotch. Tighten the quick-release lever or the binder bolt, that secures the seat post position in the seat tube, then mount the bike. Your heel should be able to touch the pedal in the lowest pedal position. When placing the balls of your feet on the pedal, you should be able to almost--but not fully--extend your leg in the lowest pedal position. If so, go for a short test ride. If the seat height doesn't feel entirely comfortable yet, adjust the seat in small increments, then test ride the bike again. Keep adjusting the seat until you have found your preferred seat height.
Riding Style
Your riding style, level of ambition and intended trip duration influence your ideal seat height to an extent. Racers with click pedals tend to ride slightly higher seats than inner-city commuters who ride in thick traffic and stop often and need to put a foot down to steady their bike frequently. If you ride a mountain bike, however, your bike's bottom bracket is too high to allow for your feet to touch the ground with a properly adjusted seat.
Other Adjustments
Height alone doesn't make a perfect seat position. Other factors you need to take into consideration are the the distance from the seat to the handlebar and the seat inclination angle, so you might have to make some more adjustments based on your body type and personal preference. For highest efficiency and easiest pedaling, move your seat backward or forward until your knees are positioned above the pedal. As for the angle, some riders--mostly men--prefer a slight uptilt while other cyclists--usually women--prefer a slight downtilt of the seat nose. Make sure, though to avoid steep angles.
Saddle Types
Bicycle seats, often referred to as "saddles, come in a broad variety of shapes, sizes, materials and grades of firmness, and they range from slim, stiff and lightweight race saddles to slightly padded, slim mountain bike seats, and wide, soft-cushioned options and come in gel-filled versions, with cut-outs or even without a nose. A softer saddle isn't automatically more comfortable, and more ambitious riders and cyclists who go on extended rides usually prefer a narrow and firm saddle over a wide and soft seat, because smaller and narrower seats create less friction. Casual riders that love a rather upright cycling position might be happier with a wider seat.
Which bicycle saddle will work best for your riding style and body type, is a decision that mimics the selection of a new pair of shoes, as Jim Langley, former chief technical editor for "Bicycling Magazine," points out. Not one model fits all occasions and body specifications. Make sure to test ride a seat before you buy it to avoid an ergonomic mismatch.
Tips
To secure the seat, use a wrench. If your bike has a carbon-fiber frame or seatpost, best work with a torque wrench to adjust the seat.
For stability and safety reasons, never go past the minimum insertion mark on the seatpost. If you can't extend the seat high enough without passing that mark, get a longer seatpost.
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