Swapping Fizik Arione for Fizik Vento Argo - Setup Question

[odonnebj]

I've been using an Arione for the last decade and I recently switched to the Vento Argo. The Arione is 300mm long with the anatomical center (75mm width) located 150mm from the nose. The Vento Argo on the other hand is 264mm long with the anatomical center located 114mm from the nose. I set the Vento Argo up with the nose an additional 36mm behind the bottom bracket (150mm - 114mm) to ensure the anatomical center was in the same spot as my Arione. I feel way too far back and I was curious if anyone else experienced this with the Vento Argo. I had to move the saddle 10mm forward in order to get my knee in a similar position relative to the spindle. I'm assuming the anatomical center is just a starting point for setup between Fizik saddles. I was just surprised that I must have sat further forward on the Arione than I realized. Thoughts? Comments?

[sheepdog84]

I had similar experiences moving from a S-works Toupe to a Pro Stealth, and wound up just sticking with the Toupe instead. The Pro Stealth was about slammed forward on the rails at that point. Since I tend to move forward and rearward on the saddle, the longer saddle made more sense to me.

These shortnose saddles assume that the rider's pelvis will rotate further forward, but stay static in the same seating area, more or less.

I believe this is the intent of short nosed saddles - basically so that pros can get the nose of the saddle further forward towards the BB, without breaking the UCI rules as one would do with a traditional saddle.

[ridethecliche]

Echo what sheepdog said. The change in position is likely related to changes in your hip angle based on how you're sitting. You might be sitting in the same place but feel different because of how you're bent. Moving forward likely puts you back in a happy middle ground vis a vis pelvic rotation and where your knees like to hang out.

[odonnebj]

Makes sense! Thanks guys!! I appreciate the input.

[HowardCosellsPR]

So... I actually just transitioned to Argos (both the vento and tempo) from specialized sworks toupes. It was a total hassle to set up until I gave up on my normal 'measure and go' approach.

One thing I experienced with the Argo is that the design kind of masks where you actually sit on it (eg. the wide point/pocket(?) relative to the wide point on the shell (a sensible place to take measurements). Similarly, the back of the saddle is rather long, which further confuses the eye (and, obviously, is useless for measuring). In other words, for me, while it is normally intuitive to figure out the measuring point for a seat/where I'll actually sit on it and, that point normally corresponds well with the contour of the seat shell. And... you can't just eyeball it because it looks weird/is so differently proportioned

What I ended up needing to do to match fore-aft was put the seat on a different post and ride it around a bit (just around the neighborhood, though... I could have just thrown it on the trainer), without stressing about fore-aft. I used this 'just ride around' to find and take note of where I felt comfy/settled on the actual seat, irregardless of rest of fit... focussing on my posture/pelvis, etc... I did this until I had a firm sense of where my body would actually live on the seat. Then I went back and used (measured) from that point in the saddle to match my old fore-aft and height numbers from my Toupe. Essentially, I needed to find the correct reference point to measure from... and once I had done so could correctly transition my other three bikes

[giordana93]

the trickiest part I found was picking the section to set at level. normally I go tip to tail (though no quite all the way to the tail as it rises a good bit), but read a tip to level just the front section, leaving the tail to go up as a support to push against. seems to work better for the Argo, but so far I have put Stealth a little in between. this micro-adjust basically moves where the "dip" falls. leveling the nose did make it easier to move a little back and forth