Nose-down saddle tilt improves gross efficiency during seated-uphill cycling.

Abstract

here, we investigated if simply tilting the saddle nose down increases efficiency during uphill cycling, which would presumably improve performance. nineteen healthy, recreational cyclists performed multiple 5min trials of seated cycling at ~ 3Wkg-1 on a large, custom-built treadmill inclined to 8° under two saddle-tilt angle conditions: parallel to the riding surface and 8° nose down. We measured subjects' rates of oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production using an expired-gas analysis system and then calculated their average metabolic power during the last two min of each 5 min trial. we found that, compared to the parallel-saddle condition, tilting the saddle nose down by 8° improved gross efficiency from 0.205 to 0.208-an average increase of 1.4% ± 0.2%, t = 5.9, p < 0.001, CI95% [0.9 to 1.9], dz = 1.3. our findings are relevant to competitive and recreational cyclists and present an opportunity for innovating new devices and saddle designs that enhance uphill-cycling efficiency. The effect of saddle tilt on other slopes and the mechanism behind the efficiency improvement remain to be investigated.