[Alan]

I was recently "fitted" to a custom road frame, and find that it fits quite nicely. The fitter used the KOPS method of seat/ fore/aft placement. Thus assuming that with the knee over pedal, my seatpost would be in the center of the saddle...I could move it back or forward and still be "balanced". I seem to be comfortable with the knee directly over the pedal.
If I use this method with my HH100, I would have the seat ALL the way forward...using all the rail. So, it appears that this may not be translated to mountain biking. In your experiences, how far behind the "pedal" do you like to see your knees? The way I measure is: I put a 4' level vertical, cutting the center of the BB....then I measure the distance from that center point to the tip of my saddle. If my road bike is (let's say) 1.75", the mtb seems to be about 3"....
If I am getting too neurotic, tell me...but I want to tranfer as much POWER to the pedal as possible... and I'll bet that seat placement governs that.
Got any ideas?

 

[turdburgle]

I set my saddle so my knee isvery close to vertical over the pedal spindle. At most I will be about 1 cm behind the spindle. I use a plum bob to find my correct fore/aft placing and I will just eyeball the 1cm or less.

 

[free-agent]

Sounds typical

I was recently "fitted" to a custom road frame, and find that it fits quite nicely. The fitter used the KOPS method of seat/ fore/aft placement. Thus assuming that with the knee over pedal, my seatpost would be in the center of the saddle...I could move it back or forward and still be "balanced". I seem to be comfortable with the knee directly over the pedal.
If I use this method with my HH100, I would have the seat ALL the way forward...using all the rail. So, it appears that this may not be translated to mountain biking. In your experiences, how far behind the "pedal" do you like to see your knees? The way I measure is: I put a 4' level vertical, cutting the center of the BB....then I measure the distance from that center point to the tip of my saddle. If my road bike is (let's say) 1.75", the mtb seems to be about 3"....
If I am getting too neurotic, tell me...but I want to tranfer as much POWER to the pedal as possible... and I'll bet that seat placement governs that.
Got any ideas?

My seat is a little bit further back on the mtb too, which seems to be the norm. XC racing set-up is usually a little more stretched out. The trick is finding that sweet spot and still being able to keep the front end down on the steep climbs.
Then again, I always seem to be fine tuning my fit with making tiny incremental changes. I think neuroticism is part of the game-

 

[bikenut316]

My seat is a little bit further back on the mtb too, which seems to be the norm. XC racing set-up is usually a little more stretched out. The trick is finding that sweet spot and still being able to keep the front end down on the steep climbs.
Then again, I always seem to be fine tuning my fit with making tiny incremental changes. I think neuroticism is part of the game-

I originally used a plumb line to set my knee over the pedal spindle. Felt fast on everything except steep climbs, which there are alot of. The saddle was slid pretty far back and that is with a setback seat post. I suspect I have long femurs. Eventually I got tired of wheelying on steep climbs so I centered the seat rails over the seatpost head and wala climbing is much better. Using the plumb line again, my knee was only slightly in front of the pedal spindle.