Overtraining or Wrong bike setup

shiner71

I have recently had my bike properly setup by LBS sorted out lots of niggles, took about 1.5 hours and very pleased with the results, certainly more comfortable and improved endurance.
Sorted out the following issues
1) Sat to high
2) Rocking hips
3) Seat not level
4) Seat to far forward
5) Cleats wrong position
6) High instep in foot
7) Slight bow in left leg
8) Rotated handle bars slightly
9) Shorter stem as over stretching
All these little tweaks have really helped. I have now noticed two new issues which i didn't have before, so not sure if i need a further tweak or two.
1) Cycling up hill in the saddle, when it gets step almost pulling wheelie, front wheel comes off the ground. Is my weight distribution correct? Do I need to change my position?
2) Noticed an increase in stiffness in Hamstrings, legs etc. would lowering the saddle make a difference? I do stretch after cycling and found this helps, is this coincidence or as I have upped my weekly amount over the last 4 weeks to between 130 -200 miles per week in prep for my first 100 miler in September, Is it that I’m feeling the result of this increase?
Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

joeyhalloran

I THINK that when you move the saddle back you engage the hamstring/glute area of your leg more, perhaps stretch these areas a bit more and give it a little longer (you don't mention how long ago you had the fit) to see if your muscles adapt.

Can't answer about the other point, I live in Cambridge!

shiner71

I had the bike fit about two weeks ago, only really noticed it more in the second week. I have looked online at some additonal stretching so will give that a go.

Cheers!

Zoomer37

You have to give your body/muscles time to adapt to the new postion on your bike. DONT start making adjustments or you'll end up undoing the fit you just had. Ride the bike more and if the guy who did the work knows his stuff then everything will be fine.

As for this ''Cycling up hill in the saddle, when it gets step almost pulling wheelie'' - I have no idea what hills your trying to ride up :shock:

shiner71

I will stick with the current setup and do some more stretching and see how things pan out.

Perhaps not a wheelie but lifting the wheel off the tarmac, gradient on hill was 20%, each time i drive down on the front crank, lift front wheel off ground.

neilo23

Bettini said once that he increased the height of his saddle a little as the season advanced and he "loosened up". I'm not saying that you should do this, but it shows that even the top pros have to get used to different positions.

Alex_Simmons/RST

shiner71 wrote:

All these little tweaks have really helped.

1) Cycling up hill in the saddle, when it gets step almost pulling wheelie, front wheel comes off the ground. Is my weight distribution correct? Do I need to change my position?
2) Noticed an increase in stiffness in Hamstrings, legs etc. would lowering the saddle make a difference?

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like quite a large change overall. Whenever you change bike set up, take some time to adapt with low to moderate effort level riding to begin with, the bigger the change, the longer you need. 1 to 3 weeks. Don't go do a silly long ride straight away either.

It is possible that your bike fitter has tried to make a frame fit you that really isn't quite suitable for you, and so the end result is less than optimal weight distribution for that bike's geometry. Hard to know.

Hamstring soreness usually means saddle a little too high, but you said saddle was already brought down, so I'd have thought you would have had a bigger problem before (but it might be that your cleat placement compensated a little for that). It might only need a couple of mm.

If you have issues, go back to the fitter. Any competent and professional bike fitter should be ready, willing and able to help you get it right and make sure you are comfortable and riding well. It's in their interests to have really happy customers out there.