Bike fit ok?

And wouldn't you know...having hard time posting the pic...doh!

The file may be to large..try resizing it.

Does this work?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53059896@N03/4898818434/

 

Edited by TredH20 2010-08-16 2:00 PM

The link does work.  I'm far from an expert but it looks like your seat is way too low.  Can't really tell without seeing you at the bottom position of your pedal cycle.  It looks like you are riding a road bike, not a tri bike. 

I think photo 4 has a shot of me at the bottom of my pedal cycle, but it's not directly from the side...so not sure if that's helpful or not.

I'm not an expert on bike fit by any stretch, but that seat looks way too low.  Your aero position looks like your sitting upright.  It doesn't look anymore aero than riding on the brake hoods.  The bend in your right leg @ 3 o'clock looks like what I would expect if at 12 o'clock.

I agree. The seat looks way low to me also. But no expert here either. Nice bike though.

It's almost impossible to say for sure since you have no photos directly from the side, but your seat is VERY low... and likely too low. Otherwise, you actually look pretty good on that bike.

Bring that beautiful Felt and you into get fit!  It will be well worth any money spent!

Bike 1 pic has got to be the funniest picture I have seen on a bike! I thought you were joking around but I would guess you should get looked at by someone else. Why is everyone so happy around me?!!! John.

Yeah.....nothing looks right in those pics.   Seat too low, bike possibly too small, not nearly aggressive enough  position in the bars to do that bike any justice.

I think you should invest in a professional fit on the bike.

Shane

I'm not a bike fitter - but your leg looks to be almost straight when it's at 6 o'clock... raising the seat a lot will probably be uncomfortable...

I'd go in for a professional bike fit... they may move the saddle forward/back, move the aero's, move things around so much, it'll feel like a new bike!

Nice bike btw!

Kind of looks that way. But it also looks like his heel his actually lower than his toes. And the other pictures sure do look like that seat is too low by inches, not just centimeters.

You've invested all that money on a nice bike.  It would be a shame not to invest a little more on a good fitting.

Hahah...well, ok...I guess the overwhelming response is "You're seat is too low..."

I raised the height of the saddle by a few inches last night and tried that out. I was still able to have some slight bend to my knee in the 12 o'clock position, and everything still seemed to be comfortable. I need to test the feel of it out a little bit, but I could post more pics later on.

I do want to get a pro fit - but basically, I spent all the money that my wife would allow on triathlon this season...any more and I'd be sleeping in the shed out back. When I went to go pick out the bike - they took all sorts of measurements of me against a wall that had all of these measurement gradations and sliding ruler pieces, etc., on it. They input all the information into a computer, height, inseam, arm length, etc...and that spit out a bunch of measurements that they adjusted the bike to. They asked me what sort of aero position I wanted - and I chose the moderate position as I was new to it, and I am wondering if that's the reason the seat is so low. It is at it's lowest point basically...it's pretty much bottomed out in the seat tube. I assumed that that "fitting" would have sufficed for the time being, and that I could get the pro-fit once I got some experience under my belt. It hasn't been uncomfortable at all, so that's one of the reasons why I have never questioned whether or not it's been wrong. The bike is as comfortable as heck...these are the first photos I've seen of myself on it, and that's why I am questioning it now.

A couple of inches!!?  That's a big change.  When we fit people to a bike we make adjustments in mm's.

You are going to hurt yourself riding the bike with the seat that low.  Seriously.  It is going to feel really weird at first but you will get use to it and comfortable if you give it time.  

Did you see how low his seat was before?

If you purchased the bike new from a LBS and they didn't include a full on fit session, my friend you got hosed!  I would march back there and insist they fit you properly to the bike you just spend a few grand on from their shop! That is just BS if they fit you that way to that bike! I'd be pissed!

You may have been fit correctly as far as seat height at the shop but the seat may have moved. If your seat was indeed bottomed out then it is quite possible that it slid down to that position.

I had a pro fit done last season and my bike just got more and more uncomfortable this season, I was losing power and I couldn't stand to be in the aero bars for more than 10 minutes. I finally looked at my seat height and it was down a good inch and a half.

If your seat was too low and you raised it and then still felt comfortable you should have also noticed a good increase in power output. When my seat was low my legs were getting fatigued really easily because I could never get a full stroke in, I was using only quad. When I moved my seat back up I immediately felt it in my calves, hip flexors and butt.

But yeah, get the pro fit, it is worth it.

In that case, I would start here:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Bike_Fit/General_Fit_Articles/Devising_a_static_tri-fit_system_890.html

This should get you a good starting point (assuming you want to get into a good aerodynamic position) and then you can adjust from there.

Shane

Aaron - I really think that this may be what happened. After taking a look at the seat post, I noticed a scratch that runs about 2-3 inches or so up the post...presumably where it scraped as the seat dropped. After tweaking the seat height a bit tonight - I got back on the bike...and surely enough...the seat post slid down - ever so slightly. I've had several issues with things not being tight enough on this bike...derailleurs, brake levers, etc....wouldn't suprise me if the seat post wasn't tight enough in the tube. Perhaps I just didn't notice the slow drop?

Edited by TredH20 2010-08-17 7:40 PM

Thanks Shane - this helps a ton. I'm still planning on a pro fit...but I've got to pick my battles