My spouse and I are sharing zwift ride bike. She is 5’ 1”. But even the lowest saddle setting is a bit high. Any creative solutions? Using look pedals and zwift seat.
It seems like the seat tube bottoms out and is very long. Wondering if sawing off the bottom 1 cm or so would allow it to adjust slightly lower.
Or any other good ideas?
Thanks.
Bc
I don’t know if cutting the seatpost will help, but saddles vary a lot in terms of the distance between the rails and the top of the saddle, so you may be able to take the saddle into a bike shop and compare it to others and see if there’s something acceptable that offers less height.
Thanks Paul. I plan to check on that.
I removed the seat tube and found out cutting the bottom wont help as that is not where the tube bottoms out in lowest setting.
Turns out the tube has a groove cut into the front running up from the bottom a few inches.
That groove allows it to clear the welded on ‘nut’ for the bottle holder screws and actually comes to stop on the top one where it bottoms out.
Seems like i could machine an extra 1-2cm length in that groove and allow the seat post to go lower. There is near 2cm clearance at top.
Would love to actually hear from zwift (or be able to actually contact them) to get their technical teams opinion on that
Bc
Answering my own post in case of use to others who need an inch more clearance.
I had a small machine shop extend the length of that channel by one inch - very simple job. See pics.
Doing so allow the seat to drop down to the limits of the seat mount bracket. I cant see how this weakens anything and worked for my spouse perfectly who at 5’ 1” the stock set up didnt work.
Dude, you are the real MVP for coming back and posting the solution you figured out and decided to go with. Thank you for sharing the great pictures. This makes it dead simple to reproduce your exact solution. I’m not sure if it is going to be enough for my 4’11” wife, but I want to try this before looking into a whole other frame just for her.
If you see this reply, would you care to share your opinion of how it has worked out. Are there any regrets or drawbacks you have become aware of after the fact?
Billy
Thanks. I have no regrets. Its worked great there are genuinely no drawbacks to doing it and its surprising zwift doesnt just have it this way. Stable, still adjustble when I want to use it etc. The amount i remove put the seat mount rails flush with the frame- so that is as low as it can go. At 4’11” it will just depend on how long legs vs torso. But worth a try.
The other useful thing i later did was swap the cranks (as zwift now sell cranks with adjustable pedal mounts) so you can adjust crank length. That also helped for a very short rider
Good luck
b
