Nitto Lugged Seatpost

Lots of small bikes have really steep seat tube angles.  This isn’t because shorter people benefit from steep seat tube angles.  In fact, for normal bikes, no one benefits from them.  If your bars are level with or close to level with your saddle, your ideal saddle position is achieved one of two ways.  With a 73 or 72.5 degree seat tube angle and a 20-25mm set back seatpost, or a 71 or 71.5 degree seat tube angle and a 0mm offset post.  If your bike is outside that range, it’s likely due to a steep seat tube angle.  

Road bikes under 54cm usually have 74+ degree seat tube angles, and that puts lots of load on your knees, among other things.  Not ideal!  The only way to combat it, besides getting a different frame, is to move the saddle back.  

Most good setback seatposts, like the Nitto S83, only bring ya back about 25mm.  That’s not enough. You need MORE!  Two options: for 74 degree seat tube angles you can probably get away with a Velo Orange setback post, IF they are in stock, which as of this writing they are not.  If you have steeper than that, say 75 degrees, you should get this lugged seatpost from Nitto.  Not because it’s lugged, but because it has a massive 40mm of setback. All that setback will help you get your ass where it needs to be, bio-mechanically.  The catch of course will be that you have to shorten your stem by at least that amount to sit in the same position with regards to your bars.   

So if you started with a 0mm offset post, and went to this post, you want to shorten your stem by 40mm.  If you started with a 20mm set back, shorten it by 20.  Of course, if your bars have always felt too far away, shorten more.  I’ve done lots of stem length experiments, and I can tell you that it’s pretty hard to bring the bars in too close.  Once you get them in close, and you get on a longer bike, it feels LONG and hard to manage, like a drunken in-law after one too many Monkey LaLas.  

This seatpost is steel, and it weighs more than an aluminum post, but it’s not heavy.  It’s just heavier than an aluminum post.  2 bolt clamp, borrowed of the Nitto S83, so that’s a gem, easy to adjust, holds its adjustment like a good toupee glue.  

All Nitto stuff is made in Toyko in a small factory.  This seatpost is expensive because it is nickel plated, brazed, and has a rad custom lug on it.  The time it takes to make this seatpost far outstrips the time it takes to make a carbon seatpost, but carbon seatposts routinely sell for more money.