Saddle tilt angle adjustment

[Barney484]

I've just bought a Selle Italia Flite Racer saddle for my Orange P7 restoration project. It wasn't clear from the photos (perhaps the clue was in the name Racer) but the rails have quite an aggressive angle such that the rear of the saddle seems quite a bit higher than the nose.
I like to ride with a fairly flat saddle and the 'bog standard' 29.8 Orange seatpost on my P7 doesn't offer me enough adjustment to bring the nose up so that the saddle is flat.
I've been looking for alternatives and the Thomson Elite post looks like it offers a fair degree of seat angle adjustment. It also comes in 29.8mm which means I wouldn't need to buy a shim.
The documentation on the Elite states that it offers 29 degrees of adjustment in one direction and 5 degrees in the other. The problem is it's not obvious which direction is which.
Does anyone know whether I would be able to tilt the nose up by (up to) 29 degrees or would I be limited to 5 degrees?
Can anyone suggest another seatpost that I should consider?

 

[mk one]

Hi, most seat posts offer enough adjustment to allow the saddle to point nose up, strange how you say yours doesn't? have you got a picture of your post? and a Thomson has plenty of adjustment being a twin bolt design.

 

[Barney484]

I'm quite prepared to admit that I may be doing something wrong but there seems to be plenty of room for me to lower the height of the nose but not to make it higher.

 

[Magpiegifts]

That's a nice flite you have there. I seen one exactly the same on eBay recently at a good price. Wish I bought it now I've seen yours

 

[Barney484]

Thanks Magpiegifts. I have to admit I changed the colour a bit. It was a lighter tan colour when I first got it. As you can see from this thread it is causing me a few problems though.

 

[Barney484]

The other question that has just occurred to me is: If I replace this with something like a Thomson or Easton (so that I have better tilt adjustment) would I need to buy an 'offset' seatpost to have as much room in the 'cockpit' as I have now?

 

[ishaw]

Looks like you should be able to adjust that, maybe things are a bit stiff, but you should be able to get the saddle in a more friendly position.

 

[mk one]

Looks to be in the rear position, making the saddle point down, is the bolt at the front of the slot underneath? also a lot of posts have a flatter half and a rounder half of the actual clamp, the rounder half goes on the post and the flatter under the saddle. Hard to tell on yours but the second picture looks like the rounded section is on top, unless they are both the same!?

 

[Barney484]

Thanks mk one. I think you've cracked it. I took the seat post out and had a look at the underside. The little spacer that sits between the bolt head and the slot in the clamp was so tightly jammed in that I thought it was a permanent part of the clamp. So I wrongly assumed the bolt could only go in one position which was towards the rear of the clamp. Having applied some WD40 I managed to prize it out and I can now see that the bolt can be positioned anywhere along the slot. So I need to position it more towards the front end of the clamp to tilt the saddle backwards.
What an idiot I am. I'll think before I ask next time but thank you very much for your help!
One final question: If I did decide to replace the seatpost later with something like a Thomson Elite, would I need to use the offset version in order to maintain a similar distance between my bars and my saddle?

 

[rwm1962]

One final question: If I did decide to replace the seatpost later with something like a Thomson Elite, would I need to use the offset version in order to maintain a similar distance between my bars and my saddle?

Possibly.

Regular Elite/P7