Zero adjustment saddles...

[benb]

It's not like I'm picking on WTB here. I've seen Selle Italia saddles with these style of markings too that cause similar issues on a road bike that would make you want to put a straight seat post on a bike you'd normally want a setback post on if you're not prepared to disobey the markings.

How the heck are you supposed to understand the limit markings on these saddles? This one if you go by the arrows for MAX it looks like zero adjustment range on this seat post clamp.

It's a pretty good saddle, but it's a MTB saddle. My bike has a 73 degree seat tube and a zero offset post and yet the position of these rails puts the saddle way too far back for me.. I haven't actually measured it but it's probably pushing 10cm back from the BB with it centered. It's not a useful rail setup for a MTB saddle realistically when it cause the saddle to be so far back. It's hard to see here but the saddle rails curve up and place the clamp area near the middle of the saddle, effectively moving the saddle back versus a saddle that has the rails go up near the back of the saddle.

I usually ignore these warnings but how do they come to the decision this is a good idea? I don't think this seat post is even a particularly long clamp. It's pretty average. It's a dropper, so it's not like I want to change it out.

Picture is after I slid it forward a little bit out of the specified adjustment range of course.

[Peter P.]

Believe it or not, WTB actually has a saddle user manual! Due to liability issues I can understand, but that's the litigious world we live in.

Regarding saddle rails and clamping it says, "The seat post must allow position in the saddle such that the clamping mechanism of the rails only contacts the straight section of the rails, ideally within the marking range printed on the rails."

From the word "ideally" is appears there's some leeway in going beyond those max lines.

I have a WTB saddle with those markings and I interpreted them to mean the vertical line before/after the word "max" rather than the tip of the arrow. I run slightly out of bounds on them without a problem.

You can read all the restrictions in their user manual HERE.

[benb]

Yes, I had read the manual.

More just how on earth does this get built this way in the first place, how do you continue to make markings this odd, etc..

It's a relatively cheap saddle, as long as it doesn't fail in a way that sets me up for serious injury it's all good. If the rails bent or something after a while due to the way I adjusted it then it'd be no big deal.

If the outer lines of the silver area are the true "Max" the arrows should point the other way.

[charliedid]

You sure the max isn't the two outermost hash marks vs those arrows?