|
|
Chunky Seat |
|
|
|
Written by Dave Barr
|
|
Tuesday, 22 January 2008 |
An old friend gets a chunky seat
 | | click to enlarge |
Ahhh winter riding!! Twenty five minutes to don all the gear and accessories for a 2 hr ride. But you gotta do it….right? Here in New England we have a steady supply of snow, salt and sand to contend with, so each year I put together some “kluge” of a bike made up of basement parts from days gone by (usually a single speed road bike). This year I noticed that my John Deere green bike from last year’s project (affectionately known on local group rides as the “Tractor”) had the seat a bit too high.
When trying to lower it I found that the crappy carbon seat post was seized. This little annoyance led to about 1½ hrs of fighting, seat twisting, liquid wrenching, etc. Several expletives later, I decided I really didn’t need that cheap carbon seat post anyway, and tried to remove it with a pipe wrench (bad idea). The post crushed making the job of getting it out even more impossible than before.
Exasperated, I paused and looked around the basement only to see my old stripped-down ’99 Klein Quantum race frame sitting there innocently. I’d been meaning to get it onto e-bay, but just never got around to it. It really is a beautiful frame and was a very fast bike in its day. But, two years ago (after several years riding it) I decided, with the help of many other bike racer nerds, that it was “just too stiff and rigid”. With its enormous aluminum tubes and steep geometry it just had to be the source of my lower back problems. Never mind the lack of core exercises…it’s gotta be the bike right? So there it sat. Hmm….In a couple of hours I could swap parts from the John Deere Tractor and be up-and-running with an ultra-light single speed winter road machine. With renewed enthusiasm, I bagged the seat post project and proceeded to swap parts over to the Klein. And voila… two hours later I was ready to add the final touch (the saddle). For this, I remembered what a friend of mine (also a cycling coach) told me about saddles. She said it’s the most critical contact point on the bike, if that isn’t comfortable you won’t be able to ride fast and you won’t be able to ride very long. Better to be totally comfortable, than concern yourself with a little extra weight when it comes to the saddle. Hmm….looking around I saw I still had this big ‘ol chunky WTB speedV that I won at mountain bike race a few years back. Never even thought to use it because it weighs well over 400 grams (yes…I can be a weight weenie at times.). Anyway, the thought was that this might reduce some of the rigidity issues from the Klein frame. What-the-heck… it’s just a winter beater anyway.
Surprisingly, after several reasonably long winter rides (including a metric century), I must say that this saddle is the ticket!! Of course, I’ve also been doing a lot more core work this winter, but I never remember that old Klein being so comfortable. No back pain, tingling hands or anything. I set it up as a 40x15 single speed with the WTB saddle and an extra layer of old bar tape in just the right hand positions. The thing is incredibly light (~17.5 lbs including pedals and the chunky seat). Yet, it still has the snappy responsiveness and rockets up the climbs just as it always had. Just goes to show the importance of a comfortable saddle. This makes me want to re-evaluate all my bikes’ saddles.
Dave
 |
|
|
|
; "click to enlarge")
Show/Hide comment form
