The folklore in my neck of the woods has it that lower saddles and higher handlebars were used by older riders due to the poor road surfaces. A maxed out saddle height leaves you little room to shift weight while pedalling to add stability on a dicey mountain road. Also higher bars move weight to the back wheel, crucial for additional traction when climbing on dirt/gravel, and reduces the likelyhood of an over the bars adventure. The big climbs in the Alps and Pyrenees had some horrific road surfaces before the 60s. I noticed this watching some footage of Fausto Coppi: it looked as though he could get his saddle up another 3-4 inches if he wanted to.
Tom Adams, maybe going to ride in KC tomorrow at the Old Town Cyclery vintage riding (and eating) event. 8:30 am, ya'll come and bring the old iron!
Schotte/Girardengo/ Lygie)
> I have some opions on the issues you've brought up.
> But you know what they say about opinions and other
> things that everyone has. (message embedded)
>
> > I'm thinking especially of a couple of pics I've
> > seen of Coppi climbing
> > hills. He oddly crouched-down out there, with what
> > looks like a very low
> > saddle.
> >
> > Now, maybe I'm just not seeing this stuff
> > right...and, to be fair, some pics
> > of the 20s TdF I've seen show riders with larger
> > frames, lower saddles,
> > higher bars with shorter stem extensions, and a
> > reasonably moderate body
> > position...so sometimes the example Grant cites
> > appears to be accurate.
>
> I think the older style setup that Grant advocates is
> a, strictly speaking, a separate issue from saddle
> height. It is more an issue of relative seat and bar
> heights. His point is that having these heights set
> close to one-another can only be achieved if the frame
> size is relatively large by contemporary standards
> (extended headtubes and Technomic stems aside). He
> points out that racers' positions are incorrectly held
> up as the model, and that this is not a reasonable
> standard for recreational or "all around" riding. I
> think he would agree that it is better to be comfy and
> happy on your bike and to actually use it than to be
> uncomfortable and strained and be less inclined to
> ride. For certain, the aerodynamic concerns of
> ordinary competitive or performance-oriented cyclists
> are not the same as those of professional racers. I
> would like to be more aero, but given that I can't get
> my bike up to 30 mph anyway, aerodynamics are less
> imoportant, even if I were competing. As for
> tourists, rondenneurs (sp?) etc, the areodynamics are
> even less important. Comfort is king at 15 mph.
>
> As for saddle height, I think it has been going up
> among racers even in the last several years. Perhaps
> this is related to the use of bigger gears. Perhaps
> this is in turn related to a better understanding of
> cycling phsyiology. I'm suggesting that racers are
> pushing bigger gears these days partly because
> concerns about stress injuries are reduced by better
> shoes and pedals, better preventive measures by the
> medical people, and better treatment for the injured
> riders. Also, riders are just getting faster (better
> training, better nutrition, better legal and illegal
> drugs, better equipment) and sitting high and turning
> the big gear may just be more effective at
> contemporary pack speeds.
>
> > If that example's accurate, can anyone suggest why
> > more and more extreme
> > body positions became the norm by the 60s? Much
> > higher saddles, lower bars,
> > smaller frames, and, it seems, a very uncomfortable
> > body position for
> > someone with less than mile-long arms ;>.. Was it
> > just that a more
> > aerodynamic position makes for more speed? Simple
> > as that? And racers were
> > willing to sacrifice their bodies?
>
> Of course these new speeds are interconnected with
> other changes. Pack speeds have probably increased in
> part due improvements in aero equipment (wheels),
> training, and drugs (EPO). With the higher speeds the
> comfort/aero equation (trade-off?) gets shifted to the
> aero end. Have you noticed that handlebar heights
> have taken an abrupt drop in the last few years? This
> is in addition to the gradual drop over the past
> decades. So, yeah, I think it is simply the quest for
> aero position in the face of increased peloton speeds
> that has been driving the drop in bar height (of
> course there's feedback involved here.) What blows my
> mind is that where racers used to bury or nearly bury
> their stems in conventional forks, they now set their
> threadless stems right on top of the headset cup.
> This means that as low as stems were, they are now
> lower by the thickness of a locknut and spacer, about
> 1 full cm. If this practice was limited to the local
> crit' crowd, I'd say it's just ignorant riders aetting
> it "as low as it will go," but lots of current pros
> have 0.0 mm of spacers under their stems. On top of
> all this lowering it looks like saddles are going back
> and stems are getting longer. By doing both they keep
> weight centered over the pedals. Must be tough on the
> body.
>
> Tom Dalton