Quote Originally Posted by Irulan View Post
AFAIK, that can't be done. For me, if I think I'm going to need to be out of the saddle and back, the saddle is not up. Period. If I know there's going to be climbing involved, too, the saddle is somewhere in the middle. High enough that I don't feel like a monkey on a circus bike when climbing, but low enough so that I don't sit on it all for my descents or technical bits.
I don't see how you could get that far back with the seat up, anyway, the saddle would be in the way of where your body needs to be.

There's a great video somewhere, lost the bookmark, of a guy riding techical stuff down in Texas, seat jacked up, and how he goes over the bars. I do believe he was doing a demo, too.
Well, sorry, I should have bene been more clear. What I mean by totally behind your seat, is when you are in attack position (Cranks nearly parallel but front foot slightly higher, legs mostly extended but knees slightly bent) you should be able to move your body back far enough for the seat to be in front of you. Sure if your seat is way high your legs may not be able to extend enough to get the seat through your legs, but most people find a compromise seat position that is high enough to get good leg extention but you can still get back behind the seat for drops etc. It is only practical to get off and drop your seat if you are, like MtnBikrtChk says, doing long downhills.

I was concerned that maybe the OP is on a bike that didn't fit her. If she can't find the above position with a seat height that allows good climbing, then I'm betting her bike is too big, or not fit properly.

My riding is constant up and down, also. A couple times I have fallen off the back of the bike while decending some knarly bits. It might just me, but I would rather fall off the back of the bike then endo, any day!!