I’m curious how people who ride both MTB and road set up their bikes. I have an Evil Offering v4 with a seat angle of 79 degrees (which I love, especially for steep/technical climbing), and I’m setting up a (new-to-me) road bike with a 73 degree STA and currently a 20mm setback post on it. So obviously the pedaling position is…rather different.
I probably ride the Evil 70% of the time, and the other 30% split equally between the road bike and an Epic Evo. So then I’m wondering if I should match the seated position on the road bike closer to the Evil (zero-setback post, saddle slammed forward), or stick closer to the “accepted wisdom”? The standard road position might be more efficient in principle, but if I train more in the hip-forward position I could see an argument to roughly match the bikes?
No wrong answer here, but just curious what others have done. Thanks!
I ride XC/Downcountry, gravel, and road. I’ve found that trying to “match” my position from the MTB to drop bar bikes results in a completely different feel even on the legs. I know some people have had success matching them, but I just treat them as different fits and start from square one on each.
You mention having an Epic. If you were going to copy one of your MTB fits wouldn’t that be a better one to copy? Sorry if I’m not understanding your comment.
The Epic would be closer and easier to match for sure, but the Evil is the one I ride the most. The question is just directional anyway (do I get rid of setback or not?). I’m never fully going to replicate the position (and shouldn’t, because obviously I still ride the MTB on much steeper terrain, at lower speeds, with lower cadence, etc).
Different use cases. When you’re pedalling (or even just in the saddle) on a MTB you’re probably pointing uphill, often significantly steeper than a typical road. Whereas on a road bike you’re on the flat 90% of the time, or a gentle incline or decline.
The needs for traction on the rear wheel are also significantly different.
Dont forget to consider your cleat positions too, I ride my cleats much further back on my big sus bikes than I do on xc and road bike so might feel different as well? If you have a trainer, maybe set it up close to your current settings then play around with things one by one to see what feels best for you. or set your phone up and film yourself pedalling to see if it looks ok (or both).
To me, it would be impossible to match the position between road and MTB. The MTB position works because I am mainly either climbing or descending. The steep seat angle helps in technical climbing, and in descending having a lot of room in front of me to move around helps a lot. But on long flat sections, there is too much pressure on the hands, and getting aero is tiring.
The road position works great for road riding, but I would not want to do any technical descending in this position.
I was going to say as others have ‘apples and oranges’, but just checked and turns out my full-sus, gravel bike and new road bike all have the same seat tube angle.
The full-sus is perhaps showing it’s age now (2016) given that’s the bike where the saddle is the furthest back compared to the gravel bike (though maybe that’s an indication that I should have had a medium, not a small frame).
On the other hand, I ride climbs on my gravel bike that aren’t too far off the steepness of what I might takle on the MTB, so perhaps it’s no surprise I’ve roughly matched the seating position on those two bikes. What will be interesting is what the road bike will look like once built up, and whether I end up with a layback post or matching seat position (my current road bike has a slightly slacker seat angle and layback post, but it’s also a little shorter in reach than the new frame).
The reach of the MTB vs the gravel bike is quite different, which is likely no surprise, what with the wide flat bars on one and curly bars on the other.
FWIW I prefer to match the crank lengths, and to keep the MTB Q factor as close as possible to the road bike. It’s almost doable if you’re picky about everything (frames, cranks and pedals), but not quite. (I’m sensitive about this due to an old injury but plenty don’t care.)
The bar and seat positions can be totally different though, so there are definite limits to what can - or should - be done.
Thanks all, sounds like a pretty clear majority for not matching geo
@Matty I’m definitely not riding on the flat 90% of the time, I live right at the base of a 3000 ft climb, so definitely spend the majority of my time climbing, on any bike.
@Stephen_Poole agree on matching Q factors. I ride flats on the MTBs, but went with the Shimano long-axle pedals to match it a bit more on the road bike.
Years ago I made a decision to have all my bikes set up with 175mm cranks. The reasoning was since I was focused on MTB racing (which was all XC at the time) my fit needed to match across all bikes since most of my hours were on the MTB, not the road bike.
Fast forward to now, I’m ready to dump the 175’s for 170’s on my road and grav bikes. I’ll keep the 175s on the MTB. Besides the difference in how the bikes are ridden, it’s also the upper body position as I’m way less ‘aero’ on the MTB, which opens up the hip. And I ride road and grav way way more than MTB. So occasionally riding 175’s will fit nicely with current use. I will add that cleat position is a critical one in my view; I have both MTB and road cleats setup with the same position. This just simplifies how I feel when clipped in.
Set each bike up independently of each other so that you love the position on each & don’t worry about matching things up. That’s just going to compromise one or the other or both if you try to meet in the middle.
^ I sort of agree, but due to an old injury I really don’t get on with high Q cranksets, especially on the LHS. That’s a problem on virtually all current MTBs, but there are a few outliers that can be fitted with SRAM Wide gravel cranks, which are (just) okay, and there are aftermarket 8-bolt MTB rings with less offset so one can achieve an okay chainline. There are lower Q pedals that help here too. (It also helps to standardise crank length across road/gravel/MTB IME.)
Since I ride MTB way less often it makes more sense for me to replicate the road/gravel lower body position rather than having to deal with knee issues from misalignment.
