00:12Hi, 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
00:31of saddle height. The first uses your inseam, and the second we can do on the bike itself.
00:36For the first method, what we want to do is find your inseam measurement. So I find the
00:41quickest and simplest way to do this is using a ruler, just stand roughly shoulder width apart,
00:47pop the ruler between your legs just as high as it will go, keeping it nice and level.
00:51We want to take a measurement from the side and see how high that is. So it's 7 by 5.
01:00Once we have that measurement, we want to times that number by 0.887. So we want to transfer
01:07this measurement across to the bike. We're measuring from the centre of the bottom bracket
01:11bracket to the top of the saddle. Another way to get in the general ballpark in the right
01:19place in terms of saddle height is to use the bike itself. In this method, if you put your
01:25heel on the pedal at the bottom of the pedal stroke, like so, and then raise the saddle until
01:33your knee is locked out and straight, and then clip back in, we're now to be in roughly the
01:44right ballpark. Now, this doesn't take into account how long your foot is, so again this
01:52is just to get in roughly the right position. So how do I know if my saddle height is now
01:57right?
01:58Well, what we're looking for at the bottom of the pedal stroke is a soft knee bend, so roughly
02:04about 150 degrees. But your saddle height is only one part of your bike fit?
02:11Certainly. There are many elements that make up the fit, be it cleats, saddle, bar position,
02:17and each of them are interrelated, and changing one can have an effect on the position of the
02:23others. So this is why going as a professional bike fitter gives a comprehensive solution to
02:29all of these elements. So how do I know if my saddle height is wrong?
02:34You 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, then
02:44the
02:44saddle height might be a little bit low. If the pain is at the back of the knee, then you
02:49might have your saddle set slightly too high. In this occasion, I would probably suggest
02:54moving the saddle roughly three to four millimeters maximum to see if this helps alleviate the
03:00problems. If you have any more questions on how to set the saddle height, leave a comment
03:04at the bottom of this page.
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