oops - think i made a mistake buying a road bike

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Comments

  • Manc33
    Manc33 Posts: 2,157
    Just put flat bars on it, I did. I couldn't ride drops with my lower back being how it is.

    I'm on a carbon frame with 25c Marathon Plus always at 110PSi and it ain't bumpy. I mean there's pretty much zero vibration from the road and I dunno... maybe I am just used to it.

    I think you're just not used to it yet, I mean the general roughness of it, the thing about back problems is another issue, I ended up with an adjustable stem at 45 degrees with flat bars, I can just about get away with it without bumps hurting my back.
  • redbikejohn
    redbikejohn Posts: 160
    Not been able to ride due to working odd hours on Fri/sat but I did a bit of reading ref setup and the advice on here. Had a quick look at bike today after cleaning all the m/bikes and mtb. I wanted to check the saddle height, position and angle. It was tilted back a bit so adjust that and then had a good look at the bars to see if I could get it more to my liking. I was just swiveling them back when I noticed the writing on the stem was upsidedown, mmmmmm. Stem was angled down so the previous owner wanted the bars lower. Anyway I flipped it back the right way and a quick up and down the road felt better. Up at 3.50 am in the morning to ride to work :) going to try and do it both ways all week.........
  • ai_1
    ai_1 Posts: 3,060
    redbikejohn wrote:
    Not been able to ride due to working odd hours on Fri/sat but I did a bit of reading ref setup and the advice on here. Had a quick look at bike today after cleaning all the m/bikes and mtb. I wanted to check the saddle height, position and angle. It was tilted back a bit so adjust that and then had a good look at the bars to see if I could get it more to my liking. I was just swiveling them back when I noticed the writing on the stem was upsidedown, mmmmmm. Stem was angled down so the previous owner wanted the bars lower. Anyway I flipped it back the right way and a quick up and down the road felt better. Up at 3.50 am in the morning to ride to work :) going to try and do it both ways all week.........
    The stem on a roadbike more normally has a negative angle. The angle of the steerer tube coming through the head tube from the fork means an unangled stem would point upwards about 17°. Typically road stems have an angle of 6° to 8° amd are installed downwards so the stem ends up about 10° upward. You can get other angles too which you may want if you can't get where you want with spacers.
    However most if not all stems can be flipped to point more upwards as you've done.
  • redbikejohn
    redbikejohn Posts: 160
    Quick update : I decided to cycle into work on early shift too......
    Up at 3.50 am and cycled the 24.3 miles into work (6am start) and then back again after work :)
    250 miles for the week - losing fat, gained a bit of muscle too :)
  • HebdenBiker
    HebdenBiker Posts: 787
    Well done that man.

    And flipping the stem was all it took!
    My Blog
  • blackpoolkev
    blackpoolkev Posts: 474
    I used to ride a flat bar hybrid bike (a lot) before moving onto a "proper" road bike. Like you I was surprised that the road bike felt different, even though the saddle height and reach were apparently the same as the hybrid.
    Looking back I reckon that it was just a matter of getting used to something new.

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