The problem with my terminal problem with serious dehydration and passing blood in my urine was resolved when I got home, breaking the news to her indoors and I may be seriously ill was answered by, "Don't forget you had beetroot for tea yesterday", which suddenly explained it all. Oddly enough, I did find it strange that I had far too much life in the body to climb up from Keighley and then up Cock Hill to be as dehydrated as I thought I was and a piece of carrot cake and can of coke would not have made that much difference to the body.
Ha ha - that's good!
[
FAECAL ALERT - Don't read the rest of this paragraph if you are fussy about poo talk!] That reminds me of a time when I was called to the bathroom by my girlfriend who was in a right panic. She told me that she thought that she had developed bowel cancer or some other serious illness because there were huge blood clots in her poo. I tried reassuring her that it was not that, but she wouldn't listen. She absolutely insisted that I stare at the offending faeces with her. I started howling with laughter, which did not impress her at all. I told her that I would have been much more concerned if I hadn't produced identical 'blood clots' (a.k.a. large chunks of partially-digested beetroot from the night before's salad) just an hour earlier ...
Try rotating your bars upwards very slightly Colin and it may alleviate your back problem. I had the same issues last year which just started happening for no reason and just rotating the bars ever so slightly solved the problem. Make a small pencil mark at the edge of the stem where it clamps to the bars so you have a reference point to see how far you have rotated it or if you need to go back to where it was. It may only need a couple of milimetres at that point, but it will be a lot more near the shifters. I did wonder if over time, with all the weight that gets applied to the bars etc especcially when standing to pedal, and only 5 newtons torque holding them, that over time they slowly move downwards which caused my issue.
The problem yesterday was that I already had an aching back and a sore neck before I got on the bike. I think I must have fallen asleep in an awkward position.
I actually lowered my bars and put a longer stem on last year because I had discovered that the shorter, higher position was
causing me backache! I had always thought that I needed a higher position but I borrowed a bike with a longer, lower position and it had felt more comfortable. I think it is because I have a long torso. My 6' 1" height comes more from that than my legs which are only about a 32" inseam.
Still, I might experiment with a minor change to the bar setup though I already have the shifters pretty high up.
One thing that I changed today was the saddle position. I moved it forward about 5 mm because yesterday I felt that I was not sitting on the widest part of the saddle. As a result it was giving me a bit of a wedgie as I was riding. My bum felt better when I slid back on the saddle but then I felt overstretched to the bars. I developed a slight saddle sore on the ride and that was affecting how I sat on the bike and that in turn was aggravating my back.
I spoke to my pal Bill today. He got round an hour quicker than me (6 hrs 5 mins), but at least he had the decency to admit to being knackered when he finished. I took about 15 mins more stops than him so that fits in with my guess that he could do the ride about 45 minutes quicker than me. I met him about 20 years ago and there have only been about 2 years in that time when I have been as fit as him.
