Dammit’s adventures in mountain biking

E-bike

Or Jeffsy

Shuffle as far forward on the saddle as possible and lower your chest, mostly. I would imagine the SMP puts you further back over the rear wheel than most saddles.

You can move your bars down (or lengthen the stem) to shift your weight more over the front, but you have to decide whether you're prioritising uphill or downhill handling.

if it's really steep you just have to get off and push. no big deal.

Think of a vertical line coming up from each hub - your weight needs to be in the middle. Obviously this gets harder as things get steeper.

To be clear - the angle (and composition) of the slopes mean that getting out of the saddle was never an option as the rear tyre would spin.

With an e-bike, or more leg power the front wheel is still going to be coming up, as more power doesn't alter the balance point (although I suppose a battery might well do, hmmm).

I've tried the dropping the saddle trick, and it does work, but as you point out, it cains your knees.

As others have said, technique is huge for this kind of thing.

Get low and forward, while seated. I drop my chest right down and almost hang off the bars. This helps me keep traction through the rear wheel, while also keeping the front down.

You need to time burst of power to get over technical sections and recover in the middle.

Ride in as hard a gear as possible. Too spiny makes the front come up and you can't be as smooth.

Practice. Identify a climb you find hard - try and get further up each time. I can still remember every twist, rock and loose section of a bastard bit on my local hill. Even when doing it every weekend it was 50/50 whether I'd get over it.

Keep the cadence as smooth as possible ie not stampy too. This helps with grip on loose surfaces and in keeping the the front wheel from lifting. But as others have said moving forward to the nose of the saddle and getting as much of your weight over the bars is the key.

I'd need to be literally lying on the bars I think.

Maybe I just need to embrace wheelying up all steep hills.

Drop the stem, use a flat bar not a riser bar, keep thumbs on top of bars when things get real steep.

Jeffsy

<3

Just lean in and get low.

Saddle location in relation to the wheels:

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I was being s little tongue in check. If you aren’t racing, then what’s the worry? I manage to hit trees and bushes going up, going down, going along...if it’s so steep you are popping wheelies it’s probably worth a stroll.

Take the uplift

Not that it's actually much help, but does illustrate why longer bikes with steeper seat tubes still climb well with stubby stems.

Fundamentally you're riding a bike adapted from a cross-country chassis, so you need to pay more attention to getting your weight forward because you don't have the long and low stem to do it for you, and the SMP puts you further back and gives you less useable nose than a typical MTB saddle.

The upside is you're probably comfier on longer traversing stuff.

SMP effectively ‘locks’ you into a single position, no? I’d try another saddle that’s perhaps a bit more sympathetic to positional movements, slam it forward for a steeper effective STA and adjust stem length accordingly

Attach couple bricks to your handlebars?

@Dammit I have a fabric scoop saddle if you want to try? I use one on the MTB but have SMP Composit on all other bikes.

Thanks - however the bike came with a Fabric Scoop, which I think I still have in the box of "saddles I don't get on with".

Given that I do want to use this bike for XC, which means being on it for 5-6 hours I do need a saddle that works.

I might see what moving the saddle all the way forward on its rails does.

Drop the bars down before playing with saddle position.

Can lend you my other Cell to try if you want. It's pretty magical (I also don't get along with the Scoop on longer rides).

This seems like the right place to ask since I have no idea what I'm doing:
Would the headset cups between a 1" threaded and 1" threadless Chris King headsets be the same? (don't own either, but a used threaded 1" appears to be cheaper)
Alternatively, any recommendations for cheap, nice looking 1" threadless headset?

This is not really that right place. This is where we watch @Dammit agonise over which MTB to buy, then watch him agonise over how best to get it up a hill. Try in the mending fixing mechanic type threads.

We've resolved the best way to get it up - pushing would appear to get the most votes.

Have you considered MTB skills coaching?