AI6YR BenDefinitely pulled a muscle in my back from bicycling. Sigh. I'll survive. It's been bothering me for a few days, but discovered I make it worse and exactly what muscle when I get on a bike. (I blame using the lower bars on the road bike 🤪 ) Stretching seems to be mostly fixing this, but... ANNOYING! #firstworldproblems #BikeTooter #random
David Sacerdote@ai6yr you can get a riser stem which increases the height of the bars for a road bike. I use one which raises it just enough to keep my back happy
W6KME@dsacer @ai6yr I'll second this...fashion may say you need a super-low shoulder position for max aero efficiency. Well, we normal humans don't go fast enough for it to be as important as it is for pros. They don't ride like humans do.
Move that bar up. Learn to put your hands on the brake hoods for riding into the wind, not the drops. Use a slightly broader saddle that actually hits your sit bones. Drop the seat an inch. Be comfortable; you're never going to see the inside of a wind tunnel.
cmgrowell@ai6yr @W6KME @dsacer I just rode my son's road bike this afternoon since it hasn't had much use lately and quickly realized that I should raise the stem if I wanted to be happier with it.
When I first got a used road bike after many years of only riding mountain bikes I felt way too stretched out and hunched over. I kept putting shorter stems on the bike to bring the bars closer and didn't like the old style drop bars. I eventually switched to a wider gravel handlebar, which has a very short drop. I probably could have put a flat handlebar on it, but changing the shifters and brakes seemed like too much trouble.
@cmgrowell @W6KME @dsacer Yeah, pretty sure the hunching is what got me on this. I'll be better in a few days, but was trying to figure out what was going on (was showing up in my arm, but now clearly localized to the back muscles you use for bicycling, lol)