[Closed] Road bike - comfort issues

Have you been checked for spondylosis?

I once had a car with a low roof (Peugeot 406) which caused me to drive with my head at an angle. It felt like I had a rusty nail inside my shoulder joint.

Local Physio diagnosed it and gave me some simple neck mobility exercises which fixed it in a (not ginger) flash.

That was about 20 years ago and I still do the exercises when my neck starts to feel stiff, but the problem hasn't come back.

Agree with the posters saying your saddle is too high. Ideally get a professional fit but as a starting point when sitting on the bike with your heels on the pedals your legs should be fully extended at the bottom of the pedal stroke. Then when you clip in your knee should still be slightly bent at the bottom of the pedal stroke. Also get someone to look at you pedalling. If your saddle is too high your hips will probably be swaying from side to side. Again the posters saying that if you can't take your hands off the bars without tipping forward meaning you are sitting too far forward with too much weight on your hands are right.

You are same height as me (182cm). I have a 54cm PX sportive bike that you are welcome to take out for a 20mile blast.
I havn't been out with NLMBC recently but if you email me we can sort something out.
email me if interested.

I would agree with Smee for what its worth and here's my reason why:

If you look at the heal of your left foot in the picture it shoudl be below your pedal axle (if your felxibility is ok - level if not) - that looks like you would need at least a 2 inch drop of the saddle.

Incidentally that statement is based on "commonly accepted" wisdom not necessarily my own but it seems to work for most people. It will feel weird as anything to start with, as you will use different muscules in a different way in the pedal stroke but worth a go.
but......... dropping the saddle will shorten the reach so get hold of a cheap longer stem and have that on stand by. It also looks like your back is very straight which is often the cause of shoulder pain. conbine that with the fact your arms look nearly locked and that will give the following effect:

the vibration through the back end of the bike will travel straight up your spine to the upper part of your torso and the vibration from the bars will go straight up your arms to your upper torso.

so in summary my suggestion would be drop the saddle significantly and get hold of a set of rollers (which are amazing for building your core) ride on them for a while whilst doing a core strengthening program (just sitting on a swiss ball will help!).

If you are coming down to SITS let me know and I'll try and wedge my other halfs rollers in with the rest of our kit and you can give them a bash there if you like.

bike looks a little small to me. slightly larger frame with a taller head tube, bars higher, then (longer stem) further forward will feel easier than you can imagine with bars at their current height. experiment with brake lever placement and bar width. it all costs money though.
from personal experience...i sometimes put tri bars on my road bike, drop the bar height 3cm and put a 2cm shorter stem on. when i ride like that (for example: on rides just before or after the event the tri bars were fitted for but when i'm not in the tt position) on the tops or brake levers i get numb hands, sore neck and shoulders. when i take them (tri bars) off and go back to a higher, longer position i'm fine. i think tou have too much weight on your arms.

erm.... think you need a new carbon bike !!

There, said it

FWIW...... i seem to ride both bikes with my saddle quite far forward and tilted downwards. Just feels comfy i guess. Also, no matter how hard and often i do it i cant seem to feel comfy on thr drops, and certainly cant get alot of power with it

GF, a question for you....

When you ride along on the hoods, as in the picture, and you look down, is your front hub in front, behind, or obscured by the bars?

SB

I'm 5'11" & ride a Riddle 56cm.
Also suffer hand ache & have to move them around quite a bit.
Though of trying carbon bars.

Hi Rich, sorry to hear you're stuggling a bit on the road bike. Pat had some problems and went to www.bodyrehab.co.uk near Wheelbase in Staveley. She rated them as they looked at her position on the bike and gave some very good advice.
I also get burning pains betweeen the shoulder blades, relaxing seems to help, as does slightly altering body position whilst riding. Interestingly, I have no such problems on my TT bike, in time trials up to 100 miles.

i had a similar problem recently, and as your picture shows was badly overextending my legs when pedalling like you. your heel should be below your pedal axle which you can set by the straight leg, crank at vertical heel on pedal. mine led to very sore knees and shoulder arm issues as the position wasn't right. took a friend riding with me (experienced roadie) to spot this and we changed the saddle height (about 30mm down) and moved the saddle back and everything has been really comfy since. go to a proper roadie shop and get them to fit you even worth paying the 35 quid or so to get it done if you're not buying a new bike. I too had no problems on the mountainbike or commuting bike. positioning on roadbikes is fundamental to comfort and power delivery.

seat looks too high in that picture. your leg does look over extended.

Are you getting shorter?

In the Lakes for a week, lost signal since my last post...

I asked what size because I thought it looked short. I'm 5'11" too and I ride a 565mm top tube with a 110 stem, no layback on the post. If you stretch out a bi. More you might find you drop your saddle a touch anyway. Having said that, I can't tell for sure if your seat is too high - if you're not rocking your hips then it probably isn't. You do look cramped though...

Triangle in Horsforth of a fitting jig thing, and the guy who owns the shop is very helpful, builds good wheels too.

"is your front hub in front, behind, or obscured by the bars?"

Nopw, with the saddle all the way back, the bars hide the hub.

I'm not convinced that the saddle height is that far out for me. I just tend to ride with a high saddle on all my bikes. no bother on the mountain bikes. However, I dropped it about 2cm and pushed it right back on the rails. I've been out today concentrating on keeping the weight off my hands and that helped. Lower back ached a little but I guess I just need to work on those muscles and get used to it. Anyway, hands were fine, shoulder not fine but better than usual.

As an extra bonus, I was at least 1mph faster over my normal 22 mile route. 🙂

I think the bike's simply too shirt. My troubles have been in the hands and shoulders so I've concentrated on the bars and stem whereas it seems bike length is the real issue.

What do people think if the BG fit thing that Specialized do? I see that Boneshakers are now a Specialized concept store and I'm thinking of going to try a 58cm Tarmac next week, to see if the extra length helps. It's 1.5cm longer in the top tube and the head tube's 2 cm longer too.

i had similar problems on my old fixie GF ...i ride a 58 TT on most of my bikes and the fixie had a 54 .... thus too short.

Solved the problem by buying a new bike with a 58 TT ! and i agree that the saddle was too high looking at the far side foot.

Instead of being stubborn and ignoring the opinions of many people who know better than you, how about trying out the advice that's been given - you have nothing to lose and quite a bit to gain.

the BG footbeds are good for getting your foots varus/valgus angle sorted out.
i would ignore the amateur internet assessment of your bike fit from a small pic and get yourself fitted properly, if you can afford it then the serrota bike fit system is very thorough.
http://www.bikedynamics.com is worth a look.

When you say that your saddle is the same height as the mountain bikes, where are you measuring it from and are you on the same length cranks.
Sounds daft I know but guys that spec road bikes seem to be much more willing to change crank length based on size than MTB manufacturers.

From what I can see on the picture leg are a bit over extended but major issue is your back.

looks like you are actualy resting on your arm whereas you should be resting on your back, ussing your core muscle to keep you straight (not sure if I am clear here)

But on the other hand road cycling is pants 😉

HTH

Best juan

Further to my last post, 5'11", on a Ribble frame with carbon seat stays.
Actual Top Tube = 560mm
Effective Top Tube = 590mm
Centre BB to Top of Saddle = 770mm
Back of Saddle to centre of Bars = 825mm
Stem = 105mm
Centre of Front Hub to Centre of Bars = 600mm
Inside Leg = 860mm approx.

gf - riiight i'll chucketh my two pennys worth in.
Ignore comparing your roadie and mtb saddle height - irrelevant for a variety of reasons.
I presume you don;t have access to a shop with something like a Dialled in Motion setup machine do you ? If so use it.
From your picture i would suggest you need to drop your saddle somewhere between 5mm-15mm - hard to tell but in my experience you are too high. You'd probably also need to shunt your seat back slightly to compensate. There is a 'ideal' knee bend angle on a roadie but this also has to take into account your femur length and cleat positioning/ Q factor then also comes into it but that would result more in you complaining about your knees and hips than your hands.
Bike size could be one option. everyone is different, every bike is different. I am 5'11", ride a medium keewee which comes out as a 54" in most other bikes, however i can also ride anything in 56" in most cases. Setup will radically alter the pressure you put on your hands.
OK so thats the bike bit. Core strength is massive in road riding, if you don;t have it you will most likely suffer in various ways - rocking hips, tight hip flexors, ITB problems, numb feet/hands/neck, blackouts and tunnel fading etc. All these can happen in various degrees. Core exercise is free and you can dot it with a nice cold beer watching the tour repeats on the telly - go to some pilates or yoga, buy a swiss ball and a wobble board and do it all at home while you converse with your beautiful wife/gf/boyfriend/sister/brother/goat. Ultimately it will help stabilise your hips which are your pivot.
However, sorry to say this, find someone who knows how to FIT bikes but doesn't SELL bikes or if they do are trustworthy and recommended. Some will try and flog you anything, some are more scrupulous.
HTH.

To be honest I spoke to lots of pepole, expert and not when I had really bad knee problems. I spent a lot of money. However I decided not to scrimp or save, and rather than going to see Joe Bloggs I went to see Cyclefit in London for a fitting. They are reputed to be the best according to some people, a bit strange by others, and downright eccentric by others.

I was shocked that my saddle height went up 45mm. I was ' no that's just stupid' but it seems to have helped. I'm sure my bike fit was not the only problem, as I had the same problems running etc, but what I wanted to achieve was to draw a line under everything, and be assured that AN EXPERT had set me up on my bike, and that my fit was condisered to be spot on, before looking at going under the knife and injecting steroids etc. No knife or steroids for me to date. I accept there could be a placebo effect. But who cares. I'm riding my bike for as long as I want so far and I'm smiling. Don't mess around yourself, don't get swallowed up into fitting systems which rely on bracketing you.

However I'm currently waiting for my custom frame to arrive which will give me the right fit without raised stems, stupid amounts of seatpost etc etc.

I'd certainly agree with those who say "get fitted properly". Otherwise you might well be throwing good money after bad.

Even taking a day off and travelling some distance (even down to London for to Cyclefit) is pretty cheap compared to buying another frame that isn't right, and it might well turn out that you don't *need* a new frame, just this one setting up right.

Echo comments on saddle height - looks way too high, even though that's close to what you use on your mtb. That said, it may not be causing the discomfort.

I've found minor things like saddle angle can force you to push back too much etc (vicar!) and cause tension. Sounds like you are trying things that work though.

And I wouldn't necessarily say every bike-fitting system is correct - we are individuals, so don't worry if one doesn't work for you. That said I'd like to try one (or even TZF's spreadsheet), though I am happy with my position.

how are you comparing seat height from mtb to road bike? Are you measuring from floor or from centre of bottom bracket? Road b/b's are MUCH lower than MTB b/b's.

in the past I've had quite bad hand pain with certain brake/shifter levers - dura-ace from the late 90's were quite narrow and rounded where the hand sat, and i got really bad hand pain... i then rode on some campag hoods which were much broader and flatter.

Shirley at the end of the day only the rider can say what fits or doesn't?
All this faith in fitting schemes is pish, as guidance perhaps but not the be all and end all.
Don't you get a feel for whats wrong or right? four things I pick up on right away are saddle height, stem length, stem height and chainstay length. And just riding along you can tell if the bars are too narrow, saddle angle wrong etc etc.
Just go and look at some successfull riders and you'll see loads of odd set ups, like mine small frame as poss and maxed out with post and stem.
Someone borrowed my bike a while back and fiddled with it! saying this should be here and that there NO that's evolved over nearly four decades of racing bikes don't tell me my hoods should be like this or that.
The other thing, and this might be just me but I find the fit of a bike slightly out when I'm 'cold' and fine a few mile in?

As a gross generalisation you normamly find mtb saddle heights lower than road heights. But then I normally see 80-90% of riders on mtbs with saddles too high. But if you look at my bikes (which have all been setup on different fit systems - 4 of) the mtbs are about 10-15mm lower at a rough guestimate.

But don;t compare and get it fitted properly, all your bikes, might as well.

Just to add to what seems to be a consensus - saddle too high, bike too short.

As an aside, I've never understood why folk have a lower saddle on mtb than road.

[i]As an aside, I've never understood why folk have a lower saddle on mtb than road. [/i]

You've got bollocks haven't you? Well with a saddle set at the same height on a mountain bike as you would on a road bike, you won't have for much longer.

"how are you comparing seat height from mtb to road bike?"
Centre of BB to top of saddle.

Saddle down and back seems to have helped a little, but basically any weight on my hands sets off my shoulder. I'm going to try a fitting at the weekend.

Cynic_Al - YGM.

It May well be that now you've got the 'injury' you won't be able to correct your position until it heals as it'll always hurt. I'd sugest keeping off the road bike for a while - ride an mtb on road if you need to since you said that doesn't hurt.

I would like a prism on my bars so I could see in front of me without having to tilt my head up all the time. After a long ride on the road my neck and shoulders really ache.

Maybe it's because you ride with a peaked helmet?

As an aside, I've never understood why folk have a lower saddle on mtb than road.

You've got bollocks haven't you? Well with a saddle set at the same height on a mountain bike as you would on a road bike, you won't have for much longer.

There's a bajillion variables on road bikes. Sounds a bit like there's too much weight on your arms to me, but I dunno. I'd definitely recommend professional fit. I've never done it but I spent ages and lots of money on bars, saddles etc on my bike and finally got it pretty good. Then I was riding along in front of this old geezer the other day and he told me that my saddle was too high cos my pelvis was rocking from side to side. I had thought the height was spot on (based on the heel-straight-leg thing) but I lowered it anyway. Felt really weird at first but I've kept it there and it's really helped even more.

Another variable is the shape of the drop on your bars and the angle of rotation, and consequently the position of the levers. I fiddled with this for ages, now I've got it right at last. Previously I was almost unable to use the drops, now I can ride 80% of the time on them.

So what you think you know might not be right, hence professional fit.