I suffer from OA, the worst affected area being my right shoulder and elbow. It’s not really a problem on my MTB but I noticed tonight that my riding position on the road bike was causing my elbow to lock up. Not only is this painful, it restricts my use of the brakes and gears. Apart from sticking riser bars on it, does anyone have any ideas of how to alleviate it?
Is it worth speaking to a bike fit specialist?
I have OE in my knee, and took me a while to get to a happy position on the road bike as I'm not 'moving around' and changing the load point as much as on the MTB. I noticed the pain was is exaggerated whenever I've used the turbo.
Bike fit might be a good idea but I’m not spending a fortune for a bike that gets ridden once a week at most
The new Boardman centre is near me and a full fit is about £40 more than I paid for the road bike.
Bars are too far away and possibly too low. You should have some bend in the elbow when resting on the hoods. Lots of people use their arms as a truss to support weight on road bike. That’s not the way to set them up and definitely not if you have OA in your elbow.
You want weight taken through the legs with very little through the arms. Saddle position is what gets you to this, so it may be helpful to move the saddle half a cm forward to see if that helps with weight distribution. Then consider stem and spacer choices.
Thanks, I'll give that a try next time out.
I flipped the stem over last night which has raised the front about 20mm but it didn't feel any better on my ride to work; there's still a lot of weight on my arms.
Saddle position is correct so I don't really want to move it forward if I can avoid it. I've got a long ride planned tomorrow after work, so that will be the decider. It may be I'm just not suited to road bike riding positions.
How do you know saddle position is correct if there is still a lot of weight on your arms? Saddle Height may be fine, but fore and aft position will determine weight balance between legs and arms.
A road bike will fit anyone, but we don’t all ride with a pro flat back and a 15 cm drop to the bats.
"Saddle position is correct so I don’t really want to move it forward if I can avoid it"
don't - move it backwards to take the weight off
The new Boardman centre is near me and a full fit is about £40 more than I paid for the road bike.
Check around and see if there are some cheaper folk... local road cycling clubs can generally point you in the right direction.
One says saddle forward, one says saddle back, which is it?
Is my saddle position correct? With the cranks parallel to the ground my forward leg is at 90° to the ground.