I have a friend who is borderline OCD. He’ll sometimes wash his hands dozens of times a day, doesn’t like sticky stuff, cats drive him to antihistamine hell and there is a place for everything, with everything in its place. This can be annoying, not only for those around him, but especially for himself. It’s not a great place to be.
The upside is his bikes are always meticulously maintained, fully Rule compliant, or they are in a state of tear-down having last week’s grease freshened up and each ball bearing individually polished. He’s gotten it under control quite admirably these days, and while a chip in the duco of his beautiful steel frame will still understandably piss him off, there’s not the slightest hint of sending it back to Italy to be re-sprayed by the 78 year old artisan who originally painted it, who inconveniently happened to retire in 1984. But you can rest assured the touch-up job he’ll do himself is of paintshop standard.
But I’ve never seen him muck around with his seatpost height. Not once it’s set, anyway.
This poses the question: did The Prophet have OCD? To this observer it seems so, if numerous viewings of Le Course En Tete and A Sunday in Hell are any reliable indicator. The guy was constantly fiddling with his seatpost height. His mechanic must’ve been ready to throw his hands in the air proclaiming “Merde, Eddy! I’ve measured it three times already! Why do you not trust me?”
It seemed to matter little to Eddy that poor Charly had adhered to the numbers scribbled on the lid of his toolbox, taken the slide rule and spirit level to every possible surface and angle, and used his impeccable line of sight to position the saddle just right, exactly where it was requested to be. “How’s that Eddy?” “Is perfect.” “Then why are you borrowing a spanner from RDV’s team car? Hmmm?”
If he wasn’t adjusting his saddle, he was adjusting his stem. If he wasn’t adjusting his stem, he was squirting water from his bidon onto his brakes. If he wasn’t doing that, he was simply laying down the law. The law of The Prophet.
Obsessive? Yes. Compulsive? For sure. Did it affect his ability to waste all comers? Not likely.
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View Comments
@Oli
Great point - I neglected to mention that you have to iterate as you dial the two in, because once you move the seat up or down, it effects the setback again.
Again: fucked. Completely.
I really like the Tall Dwarfs!
I could probably apply for membership to the DLV but hey, cycling is the first sport where I'm completely happy to be this size. After years of getting beat up in other sports because I was the smallest guy out there, I sit behind all the big dudes and just enjoy the wind breaker. I'm happy not being any bigger.
Now all I play is soccer and cycling, two sports where not being that tall isn't really a penalty.
As for saddle height - a pretty skilled mechanic/fitter set me up two years ago on my #1 and told me he was going to put my saddle height a bit lower than I might typically ride. It has worked well for me and I fall within the range for most fit methods, so I'm sticking with it. Plus, there are other things I could work on instead of monkeying with saddle height. Better flexibility is a goal of mine.
@silkrider
This is my method, too. I've only ever owned two road bikes, though (and not both at one time), so I've not had the need to take detailed measurements that I can transfer from one bike to the other. I was able to dial in the fit on my first road bike pretty quickly, but the new frame (although the same size and from the same manufacturer) has been a bit of a headache to get the fit right because of a slightly longer top tube and slightly different headtube angle. I've had to move my saddle forward a bit (although still Rule 49 compliant, just barely), and fiddle with stem length and height (an issue I think I've finally solved as well).
@SimonH
Those are some great rides. That Lynsky is very cool.
I'm another of those MTB'ers who moved too far from any trails and then had kids, and so took up road cycling as the more convenient option, and fell in love. I was on mountain bikes for 20 years before even owning a road bike, and I never, ever thought about "bike fit" as much as I do now with the road bike. I do have a bar-width preference, and I like a longer stem on my MTB than is fashionable nowadays, but that's about it. While I can feel if my saddle is too low or too high on my MTB, I don't obsess over saddle height because I'm mostly out of the saddle, anyway.
@Calmante
Giraffes are a different gender from human males? I realize gender and sex are different things and gender pertains to self-identification as man or woman and sex is a chromosomal designation, but I didn't realize gender extended to which species one identifies with...
Tell us more about that graph you drew. Its got angles etc, but no forces - not sure what you're after there, though I agree in principle that it seems different leg proportions will yield different mechanical advantages.
My reasoning on this has always been that that physiological aspect influences whether one should be come a spinner or a grinder - long femurs give you loads of leverage, so you should slide back, ride at a lower cadence and make use of your power over a longer section of the stroke - think LeMond. The less pronounced your femur length, the farther forward you should sit and spin more.
People love applying the "high cadence" rule to everyone because it worked for Pharmy and its gained popularity since. It also undeniably has benefits in terms of muscle load etc, but if your not taking advantage of your physiology, there might be a more suitable way to ride.
@The Oracle
Cheers, The Lynskey is a great machine but it will sadly get sold very soon to somebody who appreciates it, or lots of people if there are no takers as I will break it back to components and move it on.
It's not been touched in six months and is way too much bike to have lying around gathering dust. The road bike has hit me hard and I want to get anothe one to keep my No.1 company, I'm looking to build something a little less breakable to use when the weather is smacking me with Rule 9.
@frank
I was referring to the focus group's revelation that one of the Keepers suffer from gender identity disorder... Then you mentioned you'd make a hot chick, so...
I probably didn't explain that diagram enough. It just shows that for a constant "seat height," in this case 10 cm, and a constant "leg length," in this case 14 cm, the angle of the knee at full extension changes depending on how long the femur is compared with the tibia. So, the longer your femur, the higher your saddle needs to be to achieve the same effective leg extension as someone with a shorter femur, even with identical tot leg lengths.
@SimonH
My Klein doesn't see a whole lot of use either, nowadays. I think I did maybe 4 trail rides all last summer. I'm not quite ready to part with it yet, however.
DLV update - remeasured and I am a towering 70cm. Quake before me!
@Rob
I'm flattered. But the guy on the left is too skinny to be me, and I'm a few years younger than the guy on the right. I'm a couple of months from peaking, but even then, there's no way I'll be going as fast as these two gentlemen...
@Steampunk
In the second picture it looks like they are both wearing the new DMT Prisma 2.0 shoes. I've been looking to buy either those or the Lake CX331. Neither seem to be available for the unclean masses yet.