Currently using a Thomson Elite Layback, but it’s not working out for me. I just can’t get enough forward tilt on the saddle for my groin’s liking.

So I’m in the market for a new setback seatpost and thought I’d give carbon a try for its rumoured comfort qualities. Budget is up to £100, needs to be 30.9 x 400, have more angle adjustment than the Thomson (but I do love the accuracy of which the Thomson can be set) and height makings would be nice.

Any suggestions?

USE Sumo carbon seatpost should fit all your requirements.

I’ve a Crank Brothers Cobolt and it’s mega. So simple to adjust and really flexy. Not cheap though.

The USE doesn’t appear to get great reviews for it’s ability to hold the saddle in position! Shame really as other than that it looks superb!

The Cobolt looks great, but too pricey.

Any views on the Truvativ Noir T40? Not a bad deal for the size I’m after at CRC.

Prevention is better than cure….

Seriously, if you can’t ’tilt’ your saddle enough with the range of a Thomson post then you need to have a little head scratch. If your saddle isn’t comfortable at anything other than a couple of degrees from horizontal then it’s not the seatpost that’s at fault. It’s either the saddle shape, saddle fore/aft on rails, saddle height, bike size, bar reach, clothing and other general bike fit issues.

Granted swapping from Thomson to USE carbon made a huge difference in comfort for me, but from flex rather than poor fit.

I have the truvativ noir one that I use on my BFe, not the lightest carbon seatpost but apparently bombproof! Certainly takes out some of the trail buzz! I would buy one agin if I had to.

Seriously, if you can’t ’tilt’ your saddle enough with the range of a Thomson post then you need to have a little head scratch. If your saddle isn’t comfortable at anything other than a couple of degrees from horizontal then it’s not the seatpost that’s at fault. It’s either the saddle shape, saddle fore/aft on rails, saddle height, bike size, bar reach, clothing and other general bike fit issues.

I totally agree. I’ve tried everything I can think of with the Thomson, but no matter what I do (short of using it as a lay forward post) I can’t get anywhere near a nose down position – horizontal is the furthest it’ll go. I’ve tried reversing the clamp, but that only gives even more nose up adjustment.

Maybe I’ve got an odd angle seat tube (2011 Whyte 901)? But the reason I went for the Thomson over anything else was that the geometry mirrors the Whyte 19 and they come with a Thomson Layback from the factory.

Confused, but tried everything I can think of.

IBeam carbon, loads of adjustment, ccomfy saddles too

That does sound odd then Billy. What saddle is it?

Yep – a pic of the bike would be helpful.

Thomson says you shouldn’t reverse the clamp, by the way – the ‘front’ bit is there for a reason – to stop you fitting it in a way that will damage the post.

I’ve a USE Sumo carbon post that has done the job for a few years now, and it’s good. The USE Alien head was / is terrible, but the sumo head is excellent and hasn’t budged an inch.

No problems with my Sumo post whatsoever. The Alien which was much different was tricky to setup, but worked OK. The Sumo is simple, one bolt and huge adjustment range. Lots of options for carbon railed saddles too, if you have anything like that.

What saddle is it?

Nothing out of the ordinary, ti railed Charge Spoon.

Thomson says you shouldn’t reverse the clamp, by the way – the ‘front’ bit is there for a reason – to stop you fitting it in a way that will damage the post.

In the instructions that came with the post it says to reverse the clamp in the (unlikely) event of adjustment issues.

Pics when I get a chance.

Billy – apologies. I installed a new Thomson over Christmas, so thought I remembered the instructions. I’ve just checked – Linky to PDF – and you’re dead right. My bad.

Seriously, if you can’t ’tilt’ your saddle enough with the range of a Thomson post then you need to have a little head scratch. If your saddle isn’t comfortable at anything other than a couple of degrees from horizontal then it’s not the seatpost that’s at fault. It’s either the saddle shape, saddle fore/aft on rails, saddle height, bike size, bar reach, clothing and other general bike fit issues.

Too small a frame?

Also try an SDG I-beam carbon post and saddle.

Zipp, syntace, fizik, anything with a decent two bolt clamp

Really like my Raceface Next one- not the lightest but it’s proved very durable. It’s got their weird cantilever head thing, which I like because you can remove the saddle (or adjust fore/aft) without loosening the angle, and vice versa, but also it gives it buckets of tilt adjustment.

Also recently got a Hylix one for the road bike, which weighs nothing at all but I reckon the tilt adjust is more or less the same as my old Thomson was. Maybe slightly more but not drastically.

Out of interest, what size frame are you running, and how tall are you?

Easton works for me.

It’s a medium Whyte 901 and I’m 5’9″.

Ok, the pic below shows as far as I can wind the front bolt up leaving the rear bolt completely slack. As you can see it’s up to the 24 marking with an indicated degree left to go. At this angle it will not clamp the saddle properly – the rear part of the clamp simply doesn’t have the movement to move downwards.

This next pics shows how far I can wind the front bolt whilst still allowing even pressure from the whole seat clamp to clamp the saddle rails.

Last pics show saddle as far ‘nose down’ as I can get it with the rest of the bike (height set at commuting level).

So, any ideas what am I doing wrong?

I had problems getting the nose of my rocket saddle low enough on a thomson layback. Just swapped saddle to a Selle SMP Lite209 (cost an arm and leg but saves the dangly bits). Now no problem getting the nose down the way the SMP’s are designed.

The SMP rails are not parallel to the seat surface by a long way so giving the nose adjustment.

I think the thomson layback has a bit of a design fault with the lack of adjustment. They run into problems when the seat tube is at a relaxed angle.

Ah, so they don’t change the head for the setback post? That’s kind of absurd tbh.

Just had a Truvativ Noir T40 turn up – much more available adjustment by the looks of it! Very happy 🙂

2 thoughts:
1. That’s a lot of seatpost showing – maybe drop it a little so there’s a little more of a gap between you and the saddle – which will relieve the pressure. TBH though the front end does look very low so maybe the frame’s a little on the small side?
2. Get an inline post? The clamp is then much closer to horizontal. You could knock the saddle back on the rails to maintain cockpit length

comfort on a titanium post is much better than carbon…

Don’t do it, on an MTB anyway. Go the extra buck and buy Ti.
I have an Easton Ec90 (or is it 70?), anyway a half decent job.

What happens, after a bit of use, is the grit wears the carbon right at the contact surface in the area of the seat tube clamp. The net effect of this being the seat dropping by 10/15mm every fu***** time you ride it no matter how tight you ‘crimp’ it up – frustrating in extremis!

The exact same thing happened to my friends, same make and model.
Having said all that, don’t go for the nice-ish £90 jobs that fleabay will chuck up on a Ti seat post search.

Mine arrived at 27.8 and didn’t fit, I had to forward photos of my vernier callipers measurements to validate my claim- they gave me a refund after attempting to bluff me with a £34 voucher…..so I emailed them with the consumer act, highlighted……I digress, sorry.

HNY BTW 😉

The other option is to try another saddle – rails go at different angles, and the two or three Spoons I have (I also like the Charge saddles) do seem to have quite high rails that are quite parallel to the upper surface of the saddle, unlike, say, the old Flite Ti saddles I used to use (example here).

Also recently got a Hylix one for the road bike, which weighs nothing at all but I reckon the tilt adjust is more or less the same as my old Thomson was. Maybe slightly more but not drastically.

I was thinking about getting one of these for my new C456 but not ordered it yet, any views on strength of if for mountain biking?

Put spacers under the stem.

But tbh the frame looks too small, based on your saddle position.

(short of using it as a lay forward post)

seen it done, this may have been a PoB on a bike of dubious provenance, who knows.

Easton EC70 are OK, decent layback, I’ve also got an old ea70 going strong so I trust the clamp design, which i think they may have now changed to a 2 bolt, ho hum.