Lower back pains on fixed?

[swee'pea99]

I've been riding fixed for several years, but have recently swapped bikes to an old Italian track bike. Absolutely love the ride - it has an attack like nothing else I've ever ridden - but it seems to have aggravated an old problem I've had with my lower back for years. I'm not sure whether it's the extreme rigidity of the ride (this frame doesn't give *at all*) or whether it's a muscular thing. Anyone had anything like it?

 

[fossyant]

Most likely geometry and size changes.

 

[Fab Foodie]

... or that you're pushing harder 'cos you're digging the responsiveness and performance so much .....

 

[Kies]

... or that you're pushing harder 'cos you're digging the responsiveness and performance so much .....

I think Foodie is right. Swapped my 28c tyres for 23c tyres and have really pushed it on my Sirrius, cue lower back pain.
Plan to go easy on next weeks commuting

 

[swee'pea99]

Thanks all. Interesting. It would probably help if I didn't live at the bottom of a steep hill, which I have to climb to start pretty much every ride...

Maybe I'll try walking the hill for awhile, and see if that makes a difference. (That would tend to narrow it down to strain rather than impact, since it would make very little difference to the amount of physical battering my spine picks up from the road.)

 

[arbocop]

In my case the cycling helps my sacroiliac nerve problem, if I cycle less it tends to come back. However, i changed my bike and it returned for a while and I had to se the chiropractor again. I tried a few changes, but it went away agin before I could 'ring' the change that had caused it, which may of course have been something completely different that brought on the relapse. Interestingly the pain isn't always where the problem is, the pain defers - and in my case I often get the first signs in my neck and numb fingers, long before the pain in my lower back and legs. I also carry a slight knee problem and often find that when the knee starts to hurt, if I don't get it seen to, the back pain often follows.

Your body is a machine, one problem brings on another.
I don't really know where I am going with this response, but I think I am saying that your back problem may be a number of factors, not necessarily the bike or the hill. I also wouldn't make a joke about being over the hill!


Mike