Design and Calibration of an Instrumented Seat Post to Measure Sitting Loads while Cycling

Traditional instrumented seat posts determine context-induced seat loads to analyze damping properties. This paper presents an enhanced instrumented seat post able to measure all six load components to resolve user-induced seat loads. User-induced bicycle loads consist of all loads the user applies to the bicycle during cycling and is measured at the steer stem, seat post and pedals. Seat loads are essentially uncharted territory, as most studies only address pedal loading to study cycling technique. In this paper a conventional seat post is redesigned by equipping it with a u-shaped component and strain gauges. The instrumented seat post is low-cost thanks to (i) the simple design, (ii) the gravitational calibration method and (iii) the permitted clearence on the strain gauge alignment. Analyzing mean seat loading in function of the pedal cycle is a significant extension to the universally adopted method of utilizing singularly pedal loads to analyze cycling technique.status: Published onlin