Bike Fit

portland_bill

Ok, so I've been waiting all bloody week to ask about this

I haven't posted on here for a while and no sooner do I have a question, I find the forum's down for upgrading... Just my luck :roll:

Anyhoo, I just acquired a Boss Equipe two weeks ago from an old school friend who needs some wiring done and he was trying to sell the bike that he's hardly used with some SPD shoes conveniently in the same size as my feet, so I offerd to put his new lights in for him and wire out his loft conversion for him in exchange for the bike and kit.

I realise it's a pretty cheap but not particularly nasty bike, and since work are still scratching their heads over whether to let me get a bike through work, I decided I couldn't be arsed to wait for them to make their minds up anymore and just got myself a cheap one to get me into it in the first place instead of just riding around on my X-country bike everywhere and constantly changing the tyres from knobblies to slicks.

The bike is a 21" frame which is around what I was told by three different LBS that I should look for, and so far it seems to be doing me ok. I've done 60.84 miles this last week on it and I'm averaging around 17-18mph on it reasonably comfortably too which is good. Obviously the rides are hard while I'm doing them, but I'm still not riding to the point where I feel like I'm going to throw up or fall over when I get off the bike.

The only problem I'm having with the bike is I just can't seem to get my hands comfortable anywhere on the bars. I always seem to keep going back to the top bends at the end of the horizontal tube and going between there and the hoods. If I ride in the drops I just seem to get out of breath straight away because my gut (not huge, but enough to get in the way a bit) just seems to stop me from being able to breath properly and I guess I just wondered if a proper bike fit might help and how much they normally cost coz I'm not exactly made of money at the moment.

Any advice appreciated thanks.

napoleond

Hi mate, at this stage don't worry, if you're comfortable on the hoods/tops then that's fine, just use the drops for descending for now. As you get fitter you'll lose weight and be able to bend further. Try adjusting stem height too...

jameses

Sounds like you may be overextending a little. I had the same thing - the only comfortable position to ride for any length of time was a few cm short of the hoods, found I couldn't stay on the drops for very long without getting out of breath. Nothing to do with the gut or flexibility (for me), just a marginally too long stem.

I went for a bike fit (which I would highly recommend - I paid £60 for a basic BG fit, got an instant 1.5mph out of it ), and they flipped the stem (amongst other adjustments). Shortened the reach just enough so that I can now ride comfortably on any part of the bars. Any aero disadvantage from the more upright riding position is more than compensated by the amount of time I now spend on the drops.

johncp

I had a back problem whenever I rode for more than an hour or so which turned out to be a stem that was a bit too long. Fitter spotted the problem straight away because my preferred hand position was exactly what you describe but in groups I had to use the hoods to cover the brakes and was overstretched - bad back. So, make sure your saddle is about right (knee over pedal spindle - ish) then see how you are and maybe change stem for a shorter one.

portland_bill

To be fair, that's exactly what I was thinking. Even riding on the hoods, I feel like I'm leaning too far forward which is why I keep going back to the corners. I might just have a word with my LBS about bike fit and see what he says.

frosty99

Johncp wrote:

I had a back problem whenever I rode for more than an hour or so which turned out to be a stem that was a bit too long. Fitter spotted the problem straight away because my preferred hand position was exactly what you describe but in groups I had to use the hoods to cover the brakes and was overstretched - bad back. So, make sure your saddle is about right (knee over pedal spindle - ish) then see how you are and maybe change stem for a shorter one.

May I ask where your back pain was? I seem to get pain in my lower back after a few hours in the saddle, wondering if this is the same thing??

Evil Laugh

If you're overstretching possibly. Should be fairly easy to tell, where do your hands "want" to be on the bars? Are your elbows locked?

Lower back pain can also be caused by saddle being too high.

johncp

frosty99 wrote:

Johncp wrote:

I had a back problem whenever I rode for more than an hour or so which turned out to be a stem that was a bit too long. Fitter spotted the problem straight away because my preferred hand position was exactly what you describe but in groups I had to use the hoods to cover the brakes and was overstretched - bad back. So, make sure your saddle is about right (knee over pedal spindle - ish) then see how you are and maybe change stem for a shorter one.

May I ask where your back pain was? I seem to get pain in my lower back after a few hours in the saddle, wondering if this is the same thing??

Lower back right in the middle. Like the op my preferred hand position was at the corners of the bars which is fine riding solo but as soon as you get in a group you want to be covering the brakes so have to go on the hoods and that extra few cms is enough to cause the overstretch. When I had the bike fit done saddle height was spot on, fore/aft was spot on but stem was maybe 2cm too long. Once that was sorted I've never had the problem again!

portland_bill

Oddly enough, the first couple of times I went out on the bike I had a pain in my back that felt like it was at the middle-bottom of my ribcage on the right hand side and that ached like hell the next morning which was simply bizarre since I knew I hadn't done anything with my ribcage.

I might have a look at my stem then and see what length it is.

Evil Laugh

Assuming your saddle is in the right place (height and setback behind BB, this is the first thing you should get right along with cleat position if you're using those) then bars and/or stem could remedy your problem.

Shorter reach, compact bars could help in both bringing the hoods and the drops closer. I just swapped some 100mm reach, 140 drop bars for 75/130, made a massive difference. In my case i needed to move the hoods and drops closer while still having a decent reach to the flat part of the bar to give me lots of leverage while climbing seated. Worked a treat for me, bar shape is pretty personal but there's lots of choice that should be considered.

But make sure your saddle is right before you start swapping out stems etc as that's your starting point, it's possible you could need to move that 10-20mm forward for eg that might sort out your reach issue.