Am I doing something wrong?

XTC2009

I think I might be.

My bike - a 2016 Boardman CX Team - is great. It ticked all the boxes when I got it (capable on road and off, fast, great groupset, value for money, one-bike-to-do-it-all), and has been tweaked with a proper bike fit. But it kicks my backside. By which I mean I come back from nearly every ride bruised and knackered. I don't ride for long - 1-2 hours is all I can manage around commitments - or as often as I'd like. But if I ever did fancy a day in the saddle I'm pretty sure I would be crippled by the end. Maybe I'm too soft, maybe I need to build myself up and get more regular and fitter and stronger. But should I really be stepping off the bike and be feeling relieved? Don't get me wrong, I always feel happier and enjoy the sense of achievement of getting out and just riding, but the feeling of relief? I'm not so sure I should feel like that?

So, am I riding the right bike? I want to be able to ride a bike for the 1-2 hours I do, and feel like I could keep going. And maybe be encouraged by that to ride further and longer. Right now I'm fairly sure I couldn't do that, cos my feet are sore, my hands are sore, my rear is sore, and I'm tired. All the time.

If you're a newbie, and you get a bike and it is uncomfortable surely it would put you off cycling quite quickly, so I'm thinking it's not the bike, cos no one would buy it, so it must be me. Maybe it's just that this one doesn't suit me.

I got my bike on the back of reviews, and lots of research - but didn't do a test ride. For sure, it is better than my previous bike, so it is a step in the right direction, but now I think I should have test ridden lots of bikes before settling on the one that feels right. How would I go about that now though - a quick spin in a car park doesn't really cut it for me.

Basically, I want my bike to be fast on the road and good off road too, and comfortable enough to ride all day. I'm using a full 1x SRAM Rival groupset with hydraulic disc brakes, and that is something I want to stick with as it has been excellent. n+1 doesn't apply - I only have room for one bike, so it has do be able to do a bit of everything.

Any ideas?

keezx

Seems to me that your body is not used to longer efforts and that your trainig intensity is too high.
When you see professionals riding for 6 six hours it may look easy but the basis of this is many many hours of low intensity training.
Get yourself a heart rate monitor and read something about training.

frisbee

Keezx wrote:

Seems to me that your body is not used to longer efforts and that your trainig intensity is too high.
When you see professionals riding for 6 six hours it may look easy but the basis of this is many many hours of low intensity training.
Get yourself a heart rate monitor and read something about training.

He's complaining about contact points being sore, not passing out from exhaustion.

Decent shorts, padded gloves, cycling shoes with a stiff sole make a big difference. Then you are on to different saddles and bike fits.

After taking up cycling again after 20 years a 30 minute ride would leave me with bruised arse bones, this was on a bike and saddle that I used to do 4+ hours on consecutive days. It takes a while to get used to being on a bike for extended periods of time.

kingstonian

What tyre pressure do you have the tyres at?

Matthewfalle

Keezx wrote:

Seems to me that your body is not used to longer efforts and that your trainig intensity is too high.
When you see professionals riding for 6 six hours it may look easy but the basis of this is many many hours of low intensity training.
Get yourself a heart rate monitor and read something about training.

Utter rubbish.

minnnt

Who did the bike fit? Perhaps it’s not quite right? Experiment with your position yourself. Small tweaks here and there may help you out. Also, what saddle are you using? That could need attention too.

Are you wearing proper cycling gear? A good set of padded shorts/bib tights etc can really help to take the edge off of any pain. Decent shoes also.

I have the team cx too and find it great.

cougie

Tyre pressure is the first point. Too high and the ride is hard.
Can you fit wider tyres? They can use lower pressure so can give a comfier ride.

After that it's probably bike set up.

diamonddog

Check your saddle height, a couple of mm too high can make it very uncomfortable.
The bike fitter gives you the measurements but he is not riding the bike you are so if it needs to be dropped a bit drop it.

sloppyschleckonds

CX bikes aren't the best for road riding.

bonk_king

When i complained of aches and pains a few months ago on this forum i was basically told to MTFU. You know what, it was the best advice ever. I grew a beard and stopped wearing my wifes clothes and i'm fine now.

XTC2009

I wear proper cycling clothing, good quality Endura stuff and SPD shoes - although finding a comfortable pair of shoes is like looking for the holy grail for my flippers.

I normally run my 32mm Spesh Roubaix Pro tyres at 60-70 PSI on the road. I got some new 35mm Panaracer Gravel Kings for Christmas, fitting them today. They have a max pressure of 70 PSI (I will run them tubed and experiment). I'm going to invest in some thicker bar tape too.

I use a Spesh Power saddle. After the bike fit it was the most comfortable with the new position - i.e. it's shorter nose didn't snag my inside leg like all the other saddles I'd tried. The shape is good, so I think I will probably just have to ride more to toughen up my posterior and MTFU as you say in that department.

FishFish

I've had two boardman bikes and numerous others. The Boardman saddles are hard! You get used to them - well I did - but I prefer the saddles on my other bikes. Before spending on a new one get a padded saddle cover - that will convince you its the saddle and not your rss.

imposter2.0

XTC2009 wrote:

I normally run my 32mm Spesh Roubaix Pro tyres at 60-70 PSI on the road.

That's probably about twice the amount they should be at for a decent ride. You should never need to be putting 70psi in a 32mm tyre under normal circumstances, it's just bonkers. I have the same tyres which I run at 30-40 on the road and the ride is very good.

cooldad

FishFish wrote:

I've had two boardman bikes and numerous others. The Boardman saddles are hard! You get used to them - well I did - but I prefer the saddles on my other bikes. Before spending on a new one get a padded saddle cover - that will convince you its the saddle and not your rss.

Bad advice. Squishy saddles, or covers are horrible. Comfy for a few miles, but they don't support you sit bones and will be torture after a while.

cougie

Padded saddle covers are for old dears in spin classes. Not for cyclists...

And yes PSI too high.

robertpb

I have a Boardman CX Team, it's a small frame, I'm 165cm tall. They said in my local Halfords you need a Medium, I told them they were nuts as even the small is quite a long frame and I would swop the 80mm stem for a 60. I changed the saddle, I've wide sit bones, and said stem, rims were changed at a later stage to 29" MTB 23.5mm internal. Tyres are currently WTB 700x40c Nanos, pressures are 22-24 front and 26-27 rear, I weigh 61kg. I mostly use it like a rigid MTB riding bomb holes and trails, if I rode it on the road a lot I might put an extra 2-3psi in them.
I don't have any of your problems even though I ride for over 2 hours at a time across pretty testing terrain for a CX, or perhaps after 33 years of offroading I've MTFU.

cycleclinic

The op is a bit to vague about the discomfort he is feeling. I cant see if he is wearing padded shorts or not. If ride my racing saddles without padded shorts it will hurt.

Also 30 to 40 psi is what i put in a 2.0" mtb tyre with innertubes. 70 psi maybe too much 50 psi is more like it. 30 psi is simply adding rolling resistance you can do without.

Pressure depend on weight though and I heavier than the above poster. But I still think sub 30 psi is wasted energy on a 40mm tyres illness its tubeless.

The op position may also not be optimal. Riding should not be painful. The op needs to visit a shop who knows what they are doing.

Wilf Roberts

My two penneth worth:

I think cx bikes are possibly a bit compromised as long distance mile munchers because they are designed (or should be) for 1hr high intensity racing. But that said something doesn’t seem right if you’re feeling like this after 1-2hr rides. I think ultimately you may find yourself getting another bike fit and possibly changing to something a bit more compliant, but in the meantime you could do worse than think about how you are riding - try and “relax” on the bike a bit more and aim to be a bit smoother. Aching hands/feet/backside after an hour point to unnecessary tension in the body to me.

Good luck with it, hope you find a solution!

timothyw

XTC, how often do you actually ride?

If it's only every week and a half say, then you simply aren't doing enough to toughen up your downstairs bits (or to get the rest of your body ready for longer efforts).

I'm a daily commuter, when I come back from a week or two off it always feels a bit tender at first.

You might just be a bit unlucky - I do have friends who barely ride but happily go for several hour rides without complaint.

Alex99

Some general points (that might be useless or useful) to consider:

-It is not uncommon to have some soreness from 2 hours on a bike. But, it shouldn't be so localized or extreme that you're put you off from doing the same thing again tomorrow or the next day. A bike isn't an armchair, but essentially you shouldn't be feeling 'injured'.
-Small position changes to the setup on the bike can make a big difference to how you feel.
-Some setup and position changes are a bit counter intuitive and quite personal e.g. some people report that lowering the bars helps with lower back pain.
-You can toughen up for some things (often hard saddles can become OK if the discomfort is on a boney area), but not for others (if the discomfort is in the soft tissue - this won't toughen up and neither would you want it to).
-Cycling puts some unique stresses on some parts of the body (neck, back, wrists, scranus).

As others have said, can you be a bit more specific with the discomfort/pain that you have?

XTC2009

Quick update - The new 35mm Panaracer Gravel King SK tyres and Specialized Phat Handle Bar Tape have made things much more comfortable, I'm hardly feeling any chatter from the rough chip seal roads around my area now! Sure, it's not as fast, but I'll take that until I MTFU.

Meanwhile, the only ache I have remaining, which concerns me, in the outside of my right foot. Only my right foot, and it's started twinging off the bike too so I'm thinking I might have picked up an injury rather than it being simply a fit issue...

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Are you using "clipless pedals," which despite the name, you clip into them?

If so, maybe you need to tweak the cleat angle on your right foot, because you are putting it in an unnatural position while riding.

XTC2009

NitrousOxide wrote:

Are you using "clipless pedals," which despite the name, you clip into them?

If so, maybe you need to tweak the cleat angle on your right foot, because you are putting it in an unnatural position while riding.

I use SPD, yep. I had a Retail bike fit last year which looked at my cleat position, and apparently determined the correct setup. I went back and we decided my shoes were too narrow. Had some special insoles made, which improved things slightly, then embarked on a quest to find wider better fitting shoes. Still haven't found the shoes to suit, but scratching my head over only my right foot bring affected.

pilot_pete

XTC2009 wrote:

NitrousOxide wrote:

Are you using "clipless pedals," which despite the name, you clip into them?

If so, maybe you need to tweak the cleat angle on your right foot, because you are putting it in an unnatural position while riding.

I use SPD, yep. I had a Retail bike fit last year which looked at my cleat position, and apparently determined the correct setup. I went back and we decided my shoes were too narrow. Had some special insoles made, which improved things slightly, then embarked on a quest to find wider better fitting shoes. Still haven't found the shoes to suit, but scratching my head over only my right foot bring affected.

Could be an imbalance, really, it could be anything from lower back, hip, leg length, predisposure to pronate/ supinate, toe on or out natural gate etc etc.

Certainly as others have said your tyre pressures seemed high for the width of tyre. I disagree with cross bikes not being suitable for hours in the saddle - it’s just a bike ffs, if it is the right size, you fit road tyres and set yourself up properly on it there is no reason why it shouldn’t be comfortable for hour upon hour. When they design cross bikes they don’t consider them only being raced for an hour and therefore design in some discomfort for anything more than that! I ride a cross bike on the roads in winter which is perfectly comfortable for all day outings...

If you have a turbo a few side on pictures of you pedalling could be useful just to see what your position looks like.

PP

pssyche

To me it sounds like your saddle might be a bit too high, that could cause both the backside and foot problem, if you are overstretching your leg. In my experience, even a few mm makes a ton of difference.

milemuncher1

cooldad wrote:

FishFish wrote:

I've had two boardman bikes and numerous others. The Boardman saddles are hard! You get used to them - well I did - but I prefer the saddles on my other bikes. Before spending on a new one get a padded saddle cover - that will convince you its the saddle and not your rss.

Bad advice. Squishy saddles, or covers are horrible. Comfy for a few miles, but they don't support you sit bones and will be torture after a while.

That’s dependent on a couple of key things, one of which is how ‘naturally padded’ the rider is, the other one is dependent on saddle size, shape and profile. The more ‘natural padding’ the rider has, the less they tend to need in the saddle / clothing, a ‘padded’ rider will actually cause more issues than they solve ( typically) by padding the clothes, and / or saddle. Someone a bit firmer / less padded in the posterior would be more likely to benefit from padding in the saddle and kit. It’s a sliding scale, and there’s an ‘equilibrium’ you need to establish. The second important point is that the profile of the saddle has to be a ‘negative’ of your sitting area, ( like a handshake, but with your arse ) or you won’t find it easy to find a comfy position. The third big issue is saddle position / angle / height. Then the rest of the ‘bike fit adjustable’ parameters have to be adjusted to find the most comfortable riding position overall. Lots of things can adversely affect your comfort, which can become more significant on a long ride. Crank length in relation to leg length, bike frame size, stem length and angle, bar width and angle, hood position, and various other parameters all count, to a greater or lesser degree. Get a bike fit done, include cleats and saddle in the fitting parameters to start with, then fine tune what’s been decided, in the fitting, over time.

daddy0

Watch this :
https://youtu.be/oxNznrlRXGU