Kingfisher101
Über Member
Personally I'd sell that and get a sportif bike or a road bike with a relaxed position. You can spend ages and £££ trying to make a bike fit and its still doesnt.
Pain on riding my first road bike...
- Thread starter drkash
- Start date
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Illaveago
Guru
- Location
- Chippenham,Wiltshire.
Probably like me and used to the old fashioned system where you could raise or lower the stem at will.
To update the thread, I fitted a steerer extender which raised the steerer tube by around 5cm which felt better. But I still felt the reach to the hoods was a bit far and so changed the stem from 100mm to 80mm and reversed it too. I also swapped my seat from the one on my hybrid bike. I cycled 60km and it felt much better. I got some mild low back ache after 45km but it was bearable, I hope this will improve on future rides as I get used to the new position.
On another note, overall I didn't find any real difference to my average speed from my hybrid bike, but I do have a nice bike though.
I wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped with their advice 🙏
On another note, overall I didn't find any real difference to my average speed from my hybrid bike, but I do have a nice bike though.
I wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped with their advice 🙏
vickster
Legendary Member
No, in case you need to change it again. You could put the bars up one more spacer?
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
^^^ this
Leave it until you're absolutely sure you've cracked the riding position. If you cut it now, it will be the Law of Sod that you'll wish you hadn't.
Leave it until you're absolutely sure you've cracked the riding position. If you cut it now, it will be the Law of Sod that you'll wish you hadn't.
cyberknight
As long as I breathe, I attack.
- Location
- Land of confusion
if your still getting back ache raise the stem a bit more
Ultimately, @drkash , it is only what is comfortable for you that counts. I wouldn't cut the top off the stem extender - if the bike is still making you sore after you've had more use, you might be better served by selling that bike and getting something better and then the riser might end up on a different bike.
My advice is to not worry if the most comfortable place for your bars to be is higher. Professional road racers ride bikes which are in some cases are two and a half inches lower (or more!) than the saddle. That's not comfortable at all for most people. Remember that as your bars get higher, they also move towards you which means you won't have to reach so far forward.
Some more general thoughts about bike fit here, which you are all welcome to ignore. But I've thought about them a lot over the years, and feel reflective, so here you go. Ignore/disagree if you like.
If you look at old pictures of road bikes, you realise that people used to ride much bigger frames. See this picture of Eileen Sheridan, a record breaker from the 1950s:
Notice how much bigger her frame is than you get on a modern bike? See how much less seatpost there is sticking out? That was considered a good bike fit at the time that photo was taken but her bike's ludicrously big by modern standards. Notice how that because the frame is taller, the handlebars are also higher. She doesn't look uncomfortable with her hands on the bottom of the drops in that picture.
Now, look at this picture of an elite-looking cyclist on a modern road bike (apologies, I don't know who she is - it was picked because it was the first non-sexual looking image of a woman on a road bike I could find on DuckDuckGo). The frame is much smaller, so the stem has to be that much lower. If she was stood up straight like Eileen is in her photo, she would be bent over a long way to have her hands resting at the bottom of the drops. It gives you a better aerodynamic position, but unless you're very young and fit also gives you backache.
The reason frames got smaller was actually down to manufacturing. Around the mid-nineties Mike Burrows designed a frame called the Giant TCR (Total Compact Road).
The idea was that the frame would be stiffer for better power transfer. That's true and lots of very fast cyclists rode TCRs, but one of the great advantages to Giant was the fact that instead of having lots of different frame sizes (some popular road bikes before then had two different frame lengths and different frames in increments of an inch!), you could make the bikes in small, medium, large and maybe extra large, then just swap out stems to suit different size riders. It worked well for elite riders, but not so well for most of us.
I have my drops higher than my saddle, and as a result use every bit of my bars. This gives me the advantages of drops (lots of places to put your hands and a better "aero" position for riding into headwinds) but I don't have to be in that low position all the time. I'm probably fatter than you and I don't have a good back. You would not need such an extreme height stem as me, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it if you do.
Next time you look at most road bikes which are in regular use (if I get a train anywhere, I like to do a bit of bike-spotting!), you notice the tape on most road bikes only gets grubby only at the tops of the bars. To my mind that's a sign that your bars are too low.
My advice is to not worry if the most comfortable place for your bars to be is higher. Professional road racers ride bikes which are in some cases are two and a half inches lower (or more!) than the saddle. That's not comfortable at all for most people. Remember that as your bars get higher, they also move towards you which means you won't have to reach so far forward.
Some more general thoughts about bike fit here, which you are all welcome to ignore. But I've thought about them a lot over the years, and feel reflective, so here you go. Ignore/disagree if you like.
If you look at old pictures of road bikes, you realise that people used to ride much bigger frames. See this picture of Eileen Sheridan, a record breaker from the 1950s:
Notice how much bigger her frame is than you get on a modern bike? See how much less seatpost there is sticking out? That was considered a good bike fit at the time that photo was taken but her bike's ludicrously big by modern standards. Notice how that because the frame is taller, the handlebars are also higher. She doesn't look uncomfortable with her hands on the bottom of the drops in that picture.
Now, look at this picture of an elite-looking cyclist on a modern road bike (apologies, I don't know who she is - it was picked because it was the first non-sexual looking image of a woman on a road bike I could find on DuckDuckGo). The frame is much smaller, so the stem has to be that much lower. If she was stood up straight like Eileen is in her photo, she would be bent over a long way to have her hands resting at the bottom of the drops. It gives you a better aerodynamic position, but unless you're very young and fit also gives you backache.
The reason frames got smaller was actually down to manufacturing. Around the mid-nineties Mike Burrows designed a frame called the Giant TCR (Total Compact Road).
The idea was that the frame would be stiffer for better power transfer. That's true and lots of very fast cyclists rode TCRs, but one of the great advantages to Giant was the fact that instead of having lots of different frame sizes (some popular road bikes before then had two different frame lengths and different frames in increments of an inch!), you could make the bikes in small, medium, large and maybe extra large, then just swap out stems to suit different size riders. It worked well for elite riders, but not so well for most of us.
I have my drops higher than my saddle, and as a result use every bit of my bars. This gives me the advantages of drops (lots of places to put your hands and a better "aero" position for riding into headwinds) but I don't have to be in that low position all the time. I'm probably fatter than you and I don't have a good back. You would not need such an extreme height stem as me, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it if you do.
Next time you look at most road bikes which are in regular use (if I get a train anywhere, I like to do a bit of bike-spotting!), you notice the tape on most road bikes only gets grubby only at the tops of the bars. To my mind that's a sign that your bars are too low.
Last edited:
cyberknight
As long as I breathe, I attack.
- Location
- Land of confusion
Check this out basically people riding on the hoods are near enough on the old drops position, http://bikeretrogrouch.blogspot.com/2013/10/changing-positions.html?m=1
Thanks all. To update, I raised the bars by one spacer. I managed my 100mile ride a couple of weeks ago and it went well. Some mild back ache half way in but that may also be as I didn't train as much as I should have. But happy to have completed my first 100mile ride
cyberknight
As long as I breathe, I attack.
- Location
- Land of confusion
glad you got sorted
HLaB
Marie Attoinette Fan
Not until you are 100% happy the bike is comfortable and you don't desperately want to sell it; you or a purchaser may need to raise your stem up or down a spacer.