Mead "Ranger" seatpost offset forward?

[x]

Looking at the pic on http://sheldonbrown.com/ranger.html, I noticed that the seatpost had a similar
look to the bike they used in "The Last Emperor".

It's sort of like a "7" handlebar stem in that it protrudes forward and the saddle clips to the
forward protrusion - basically moving the saddle closer to the BB.

I'm guessing that this is the flip side of a very relaxed seat tube angle and wondering if it had
some functionality or was just another style of the time.

My real agenda is that I just had a hardtail frame made and it turned into a might-be debacle with
the seat post about three inches aft of where it needed to be to achieve KOPS. I'm about to pick up
an adapter that moves the saddle clip three inches forward so the final effect will be sort of like
the Ranger....

The real test will be in the riding, but that's not coming for a few weeks yet and I'm trying to
rationalize that this might work out....
-----------------------
PeteCresswell

 

[Sheldon Brown]

(Pete Cresswell) wrote:
> Looking at the pic on http://sheldonbrown.com/ranger.html, I noticed that the seatpost had a
> similar look to the bike they used in "The Last Emperor".

(He's speaking of the engraving down at the bottom of the page, not the photos...I'm using a
conventional post in this bike. I now have a laprade-type post, not the pipe-type one shown in
the photos.)

> It's sort of like a "7" handlebar stem in that it protrudes forward and the saddle clips to the
> forward protrusion - basically moving the saddle closer to the BB.

Back in the day, folks ran their saddles much farther forward than they do nowadays. If you look at
pix of old bikes, they very often have pipe-type seatposts with the saddle clamp _forward_ of the
seatpost. This may be a holdover from the highwheeler era.

> I'm guessing that this is the flip side of a very relaxed seat tube angle and wondering if it had
> some functionality or was just another style of the time.

It's not an extraordinarily relaxed seat tube. I measure it at 72 degrees, same as my brand new
Rambouillet. This bike rides and handles as nicely as any bike I've ever ridden, even though it was
made in 1916.

> My real agenda is that I just had a hardtail frame made and it turned into a might-be debacle with
> the seat post about three inches aft of where it needed to be to achieve KOPS. I'm about to pick
> up an adapter that moves the saddle clip three inches forward so the final effect will be sort of
> like the Ranger....
>
> The real test will be in the riding, but that's not coming for a few weeks yet and I'm trying to
> rationalize that this might work out....

Why don't you try it the way it is before springing for the seatpost kluge. The whole KOPS thing is
snake oil in my opinion.

See: Keith Bontrager's article at http://sheldonbrown.com/kops.html

Sheldon "72 Degrees Is My Favorite Angle" Brown
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[x]

RE/
>Why don't you try it the way it is before springing for the seatpost kluge. The whole KOPS thing is
>snake oil in my opinion.

I did for a few miles and my knees didn't complain.

But it made the cockpit too long - even with the shortest stem I could get.

I don't have a lot of expertise, but my feeling is that there's something to KOPS ergonomics-wise.
Reason: I'm way too tall and in my efforts to find the right saddle I've noticed that my butt tends
to find KOPS on it's own. i.e. left to it's own devices, my body aligns itself so that my knees are
KOPS (or pretty close to it) and if the saddle isn't far enough back, my butt winds up on the rear
edge of the saddle or worse - instead of the intended area.
-----------------------
PeteCresswell