Trevski
Active Member
Having shortened my TFT to try and alleviate some knee pain I was experiencing on longer rides, I found that I had knee clearance problems. The usual fix is to move the seat forward, but I'm already at 55% weight on the front wheel, and don't want to increase that. My solution was to fit a longer, more angled stem.
Old versus new
New stem
Knee clearance
Since the handle bar is now approx 40mm higher, my initial impression was that my forward vision was obstructed. However, after about 10 minutes riding I became used to the new handle bar position and no longer notice it.
Trev's eye view
Another reason the bars are higher in my field of vision is that I have my seat reclined about 10 degrees further than the Sofrider shown in the catalogue. There are three possible seat back bracket configurations. The Sofrider in the catalogue has the bracket in the most upright configuration, I have mine with the two plates each side that clamp the wire rails turned 180 degrees, so the tightening bolt is between the rails and the seat instead of behind the rails.
This gives me a seat back angle of approx 38 degrees, instead of approx 48 degrees as shown for the original. I arrived at those figures by using the highly scientific method of drawing a line along the seat back in MSPaint, and taking note of the vertical and horizontal pixel counts to arrive at the tangent of the angle :geek:
Stock Sofrider
Highly modified racing Sofrider
It's possible to recline the seat even further by turning the bracket itself around, so the bolt is behind the seat post. I tried it in that configuration, and set my fastest time ever on my 20km ride to Port Kennedy and back....but my neck hated me for the next 3 days....
Finally, I found that having graduated to Lycra bike pants, I was sliding forward on the seat pan. I've always felt the pan needed more upward tilt at the front, so this was achieved by keeping the pan in the same position to preserve my seat back tilt, and moving the seat bracket back one hole on the frame. Of course, this meant drilling new holes for the bracket to mount. As can be seen, the forward edge of the bracket is now level with the front holes originally provided - there's a bit of daylight visible through one of them.
New seat pan mount hole positions.
And the legal bit. None of the mods shown here were suggested, tested or endorsed by Cruzbike. If my stem breaks or seat cracks and I come a cropper, it'll be my own fault. If you copy what I've done and you crash and burn, it's your fault!!
Cheers,
Trev
Old versus new
New stem
Knee clearance
Since the handle bar is now approx 40mm higher, my initial impression was that my forward vision was obstructed. However, after about 10 minutes riding I became used to the new handle bar position and no longer notice it.
Trev's eye view
Another reason the bars are higher in my field of vision is that I have my seat reclined about 10 degrees further than the Sofrider shown in the catalogue. There are three possible seat back bracket configurations. The Sofrider in the catalogue has the bracket in the most upright configuration, I have mine with the two plates each side that clamp the wire rails turned 180 degrees, so the tightening bolt is between the rails and the seat instead of behind the rails.
This gives me a seat back angle of approx 38 degrees, instead of approx 48 degrees as shown for the original. I arrived at those figures by using the highly scientific method of drawing a line along the seat back in MSPaint, and taking note of the vertical and horizontal pixel counts to arrive at the tangent of the angle :geek:
Stock Sofrider
Highly modified racing Sofrider
It's possible to recline the seat even further by turning the bracket itself around, so the bolt is behind the seat post. I tried it in that configuration, and set my fastest time ever on my 20km ride to Port Kennedy and back....but my neck hated me for the next 3 days....
Finally, I found that having graduated to Lycra bike pants, I was sliding forward on the seat pan. I've always felt the pan needed more upward tilt at the front, so this was achieved by keeping the pan in the same position to preserve my seat back tilt, and moving the seat bracket back one hole on the frame. Of course, this meant drilling new holes for the bracket to mount. As can be seen, the forward edge of the bracket is now level with the front holes originally provided - there's a bit of daylight visible through one of them.
New seat pan mount hole positions.
And the legal bit. None of the mods shown here were suggested, tested or endorsed by Cruzbike. If my stem breaks or seat cracks and I come a cropper, it'll be my own fault. If you copy what I've done and you crash and burn, it's your fault!!
Cheers,
Trev
