How to adjust your mountain bike saddle angle
Improve your seat comfort by adjusting the angle of your saddle
Published:
As well as setting the height of your saddle it’s a good idea to adjust the angle too. Below are a few tips on setting your seat angle to suit your riding and your bike for a more comfortable seat.
1. Angle for your bike
On a hardtail, it’s usually comfiest to have the seat roughly level.
On a full-suspension bike, it can be good to tip the nose down slightly, to compensate for the fact that the rear suspension sags considerably further than the fork when you’re sat in the saddle.
2. Twin-bolt clamp
If your seatpost has a twin-bolt clamp (skip to step 6 if you have a single-bolt post) and you want to tilt the saddle nose down, use the correct size Allen key (usually 5mm) to loosen the rearmost bolt a few turns (anticlockwise).
*There are various ways of securing a saddle to a seatpost, but this system – where bolts at the front and rear of the seatpost head are tightened to clamp the saddle rails in place – is the most common, due to its versatility and robustness.
To tilt the nose up, loosen the front bolt.
3. Set the fore/aft position
While the bolts are loose, think about adjusting the fore-aft position of the saddle.
Sliding it forwards will give your bike a steeper effective seat tube angle, making it feel more eager on the climbs.
Moving it back will make the cockpit feel roomier on flat terrain.
4. Adjust and tighten
If you loosened the rear bolt in step 2, tighten the front one (clockwise), and vice versa.
To drop the nose down further, loosen the rear bolt some more (anticlockwise) and then re-tighten the front one (clockwise).
Do the opposite to lift the nose higher.
5. Check the torque
Once you’re happy with the saddle angle and fore-aft position, tighten each bolt alternately until both are done up tight.
If possible, look up the seatpost manufacturer’s recommended torque settings for these bolts, and tighten to their specifications.
6. Single-bolt post
On a single-bolt post, use the correct size Allen key to loosen the clamp bolt (anticlockwise) until the mechanism moves freely.
Adjust the angle of the saddle, and the fore-aft position too if necessary, and then re-tighten the bolt (clockwise) to the correct torque.
7. Check the position
Go for a ride. If the saddle is too high at the front, you may find it a strain to hold yourself forwards on climbs.
Too high at the back, and it may dig into your behind or put strain on your wrists (because you’re having to push back on the bar to maintain your position on the saddle).
Authors
Seb Stott is a former technical writer for BikeRadar. Seb's been riding mountain bikes for more than half his life, ever since getting hooked on a tiny 24Seven Crosser aged 13. He's raced downhill, enduro and cross-country, and while no athlete, still enters the occasional race. Seb studied experimental physics at university, and he's now happily using his degree experimenting with and testing different mountain bike setups, trying to work out what works best and why. You'll often find him riding the same track ten times in a day, changing just one thing to pin down the differences. Seb has also been a regular contributor to the BikeRadar Podcast and BikeRadar YouTube channel, and written for MBUK magazine and Pinkbike.com.
