Clip on bars leading to raised Saddle height?

[grellboy]

I am trying to get used to clip on bars on my road bike but what I seem to be experiencing is when I get down low like this, my thighs seem to pressing up onto my torso on the upstroke. I'm not particularly lardy and feel that this issue is reducing my power, regardless of aero gains. I know on a tt bike the saddle is forward etc but on a normal road bike with clip ons, is it normal procedure to raise saddle height? It occurred to me that increased height would give my thighs more space and would remove the impedement which occurs when they touch my torso. Would I be right to raise it then?

 

[Heltor Chasca]

Logic would suggest the opposite, but that could cause mayhem with your knees. I read on various sites and watched on YouTube, TT types raising the stem slightly. I also believe a shorter stem may help. The aim is to make your frontal shape narrower/smaller, which isn’t necessarily lower.

CAVEAT: I am very new to this. I only have about 400km and some turbo time with my clip ons and I’m very comfortable. Audax geometry.

 

[Sharky]

The biggest gain from clip on aero bars is just having your arms in front of the body and not acting as air brakes like they are on drops. You probably need to position the aero bars high enough so that your thighs are not bashing your stomach. It also takes several rides to get used to riding with them.

For a similar reason, I switched to shorter cranks from 170's to 150's. A 2cm difference. This means you have to raise the saddle by 2 cm to keep the same length from pedal to saddle when the pedal is at 6 O'clock. But at 12 O'clock, there is now a difference of 4cm from pedal to saddle, which means your thighs don't hit the stomach and a TT position is much more comfortable.

Good luck on finding the ideal position

 

[Ian H]

If you're not racing, then the main advantage of clip-ons is comfort over distance. Raise the bars until you're comfortable.

 

[Unimaginative]

The position of your saddle shouldn't be dictated by the position of your torso, upper body or arms - it's a function of how far forward your saddle is compared with your bottom bracket, the length of your legs, comfort of your legs and the muscles that you are using in your pedal stroke.

If you already have a suitable position on the saddle then the only change you'd want to make for clip-ons or a full TT bike would be to rotate your position around the bottom bracket, bringing your saddle both forward and higher. Doing so (guideline seems to be around 2mm height for each 10mm forward) would mean your torso also rotates around the bottom bracket, making your bars lower and (to a degree) closer. Since your relationship between saddle and bottom bracket remains the same, the pedalling dynamic remains (relatively) intact.

With clip-ons you have a great opportunity to try out different positions as you won't have to re-cable each time the aero bars are moved; experiment with the bars being narrow or wide, angle them horizontal (traditional), slightly up (pretty common) or very much up (preying mantis position) and if the elbow pads can be rotated or adjusted independently (Zipp Vuka, Profile Design T2/3/4, etc.) then do so; use positions outside at a reasonable pace as some positions seem fine at first but quickly show themselves as unusable when used in anger.

If your aim is to reduce your frontal area / CdA, remember that narrower can beat lower for some riders and that position needs to be a compromise between power output and aeroness - it's no good being low if you're slower because you can't use your power