It’s an old steel frame bike I kind of fell in love with, and I wanted something simple I could repair myself.
However, I’m struggling with getting my saddle up. Since there are clearly two tubes, they should be adjustable somehow, but I can’t get them to move. Any idea how this stuff works?
by bugfish03
4 Comments
Common problem with older or poorly cared-for bikes. Seatpost and frame are stuck together with corrosion. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/stuck-seatposts.html
The silver tube is called a seatpost. It is inserted into the frame’s seat tube. Normally the seatpost slides up and down within the seatpost, with a clamp resting at the top of the seat tube to clamp the seatpost into (temporary) position.
In your case, someone likely jammed a too-thick seatpost of the wrong diameter into the seat tube. Or the seatpost was the correct diameter and it’s either just sitting as deep as it will go or is somehow stuck (possible galvanic corrosion).
Anyway, depending on why it’s in there the way it is, the solution is to pull out the seatpost and use a proper fitting seatpost + clamp to get the correct height.
New seatpost
You can probably fit another seatpost on top of the current seatpost. You can do what I did to a beach cruiser and JB weld them together. Hope I don’t get banned for this comment but it works.