hustler

iTrader: (6)

That's better.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Appreciate the advice from everyone regarding the kid seat. The WeeRide seat and Giro helmet arrived yesterday so I had time to get everything set up for a Father's Day afternoon ride. Kiddo loved it.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

very cool, 'grats

Mazdaspeeder

Hey guys, so for my Fuji Fondo, it's an "endurance" themed bike. One of my friends was telling me that if I replaced the 25* setback seatpost with a straight one, I would be able to lower the whole handlebar assembly down to basically the very bottom, which would let me set the bike up in a bit more of a "racy" mode. I had to get the 90mm 25* stem because I was just too stretched with the 7* 100mm. My upper body is really short. Is this possible in theory? Here's as even of a side shot as I could get. Seat could probably use to come up a hair as well. The only thing I don't understand with this is if I get a straight seatpost, it moves the seat forward, which changes the knee-to-pedal axle alignment, though not sure just how important that is compared to everything else. I do feel like if the seat was able to come forward more, I could then get the bars way lower, I'd even go as far as trying out putting the 100mm 7* rise stem back on, perhaps facing down. The guy at the LBS where I got this told me when he was fitting me that to get totally comfortable on his bike, he eventually did get a straight seatpost and shorter stem, I guess as my core improves I can go lower. I did a 35 mile ride yesterday (2.5 hours roughly) and towards the end had a little cramping in my upper back near my left shoulder blade, but today it's totally fine. No lower back pain, no neck or arm pain. P.S. don't mind the saddle bag, I just don't quite like the feeling of everything in my back pockets yet.

emilio700

iTrader: (3)

Don't fret over the bag. Plenty useful and I know a bunch of cat 1's and pros that train with one. I'm a stuff-everything-in-jersey-pockets guy.
Those wheels will last forever but probably ride hard. Tire choice will have a huge effect on ride quality.
Anyway, that nice bike. Enjoy.

Mazdaspeeder

Thanks Emilio. I looked up the wheelset and it's roughly 1950g for the pair, so I could lose over a pound there easily between lighter (possibly tubeless) wheels and lighter tires. However, at this point I think I just want to get the miles in and really dial in the fit. If I find that I can set this bike up for long rides like yesterday and be comfortable, and then also drop some spacers and throw in a different stem and/or seatpost to make it more agressive, I'd be more inclined to keep the bike longer, otherwise I might step up to something more agressive in a year or two. I just don't see many agressive bikes with headtubes as tall as mine, so we'll see. I'm sure it will be fine for me for a while until I get to that next level. Tires are factory Zaffiro Vittoria pro slicks at 100psi front and 110 rear (for yesterdays ride at least). I also tried drafting for the first time since it was also my first time not riding solo on the road, and I was really impressed at how effective it was, though a bit uncomfortable initially being that close to someone and not being able to see ahead well. Now I know why bikers always hand signal to each other.

On a side note, I went from going to the gym 2-3 times a week to just one, and combined with biking and slightly better eating, I've dropped 8lbs over the last few weeks. Still want to continue lifting, though it's a bit tough to do both because if I'm sore from the gym, it's hard to ride, and if I don't get sore at the gym, I feel like I've essentially done nothing there. Are there any cycle specific excersizes I can do to maintain my muscle mass and definition, while leaving me with the lowest amount of strain on my back so I can continue to ride? I got so close to my goal last week, I wanted to hit 100 miles, managed to do 96.4 this week I'm only riding tomorrow and then away on vacay so will give my body some time to recover. Figure I'll do some lifting today and tomorrow to really wear myself out since I'm going to have a whole week to recover. Will probably put my 8lbs back on haha

Itty

Your flexibility will most likely continue to improve. There really is a lot of ground to be made up when you first start riding. There's nothing wrong with adapting your position to be more aggressive in small steps as your flexibility improves.

As for the exercises, I recommend doing a lot of core stuff. I like planks and plank variations, as well as dead lifts and some other free weight stuff. I recommend staying away from machines. Also, rock climbing is a great way to maintain functional strength in your upper body and is great cross training for cycling.

emilio700

iTrader: (3)

The area that helps cycling the most is core. I'm lazy so I do it on the bike by doing a lot of out of the saddle climbing. But even if you do zero off the bike training, just getting skinny will help more than everything else combined, more than the most exotic bike. Focus on building good eating habits.
One trick I use is to simply skip a meal on days I don't ride. The "three squares" pattern is a social print that doesn't always fit human biorhythms. Always eat something for breakfast. How much is up to your preference. Lunch or not. Easier to eat a good sized lunch and either skip dinner or just have a snack in the evening. If you are painfully hungry at night then eat. If it's mild hunger, eat light and pause. It's so easy to feel mild hunger and assume you need a full 800-1500 cal meal when all your body needs is a 200-400 cal snack.

Drink at least one liter of water every day. This is immutable.
I stretch a lot, always have. Best to stretch after a brief warmup on the bike but that's sometimes impossible on group rides. If you stretch when cold, be gentle with those muscles. Simple fact; a stretched muscle makes more power. That's free speed.
If you want a big "swimmers" upper body or vee shape, your cycling will suffer. Just don't need that mass. As far as overall muscle definition goes, getting skinny is chiefly just dropping body fat percentage. I'm not what anyone would call muscle-y but at 5% body fat, whatever meat I have on my bones has definition.

Mazdaspeeder

Gotcha, I guess I'm just not quite ready to get "skinny" after years of working on getting big. As long as I can maintain flexibility and be able to ride, I'm OK losing a little aero advantage. Whatever the case, I have broad shoulders, so even when I was skinny, I still had a wide upper body. As far as the tall headtube and the possibility of making it more racy, is 190mm too long to bother trying? I'll probably get a straight seatpost next (or borrow someone's who has one to try), which should bring me forward. I just hope it doesn't cause leg issues with the KOPS thing that was just posted. If that works out, I should be able to drop my bars a bunch and get flatter. Realistically, it will never get to true race bike level, but if I can tolerate the position for long enough, I'd like to get lower over time.

As a reference, I'm 5'11" 175lbs (a few weeks ago) and had no trouble doing sets of chest presses with 100lb dumbells or doing 15-20 chin-ups in a row. Now that I've been a bit more laxed about lifting, I'll see what I can put up today. When I went last week, I could still do 80lbs fine, but 90lbs already felt heavy. That's what happens when you go from 3x a week to 1x :-/ I'm sure there is a happy medium I can achieve here though.

shlammed

iTrader: (8)

keep your legs where they are happy. rotating forward on a seatpost for what your doing doesn't make sense.


+1 on frequent stretches. I picked up a foam roller and love using that thing after a ride. if I cant get on it after a ride, I will do light 3-5 mins on the elliptical and then roll around on that thing in the evening. it wont feel great during, but I find I can get more riding in the next day without feeling the muscle fatigue.

emilio700

iTrader: (3)

Doped Bikes

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Rode without glasses yesterday.
Never doing that again. No matter what I do, or where I go, I get like 4 billion bugs right into my eyesockets. It's nuts.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

what do the broz have to say about stems?

I think that's the one last thing about my bike that is not quite right. I think it's too long, and my bar is at least an inch or two too far forward. I've yet to measure the length, but I have fairly short arms, and while they are slightly bent while riding, I feel like when I'm in my most comfy position they are always extended all the way, and this causes them to get sore pretty often.

according to this site's specs of my bike, I have a C3 110mm I believe
2013 Cannondale Synapse Carbon 6 Tiagra - Components and Reviews

I'm 5'8, the bike is 54cm, and I haz short arms. What do?
(I suppose the 1st thing is taking an actual measurement of my stem length).

Any tips welcomed

18psi

iTrader: (76)

ok think I found the exact stem I have
https://www.amazon.com/Cannondale-Ro...annondale+stem

am I understanding the size right?
1-1/8 31.8 12D110

its 110mm?
my google-fu tells me 90-110-130 are "typical" lengths? but looks like the sizes go way lower than that on some of the stems

*edit:
I guess it will really come down to just trying stuff. Kinda don't want to buy things I won't need or might not work. Since this is so subjective and relative to each persons body type, I guess a better question would be: how short is too short? I know I want shorter than currently, but don't want to order like every size out there and waste a ton of money.

shlammed

iTrader: (8)

if you go too short for a certain type of bike, you will change the handling.

short stems are common for mtb;s which is why they are available.
Go to your lbs and see if they will let you try some other stems. mine will sell me one and then I can bring it back and change to another one if need be in a reasonable time frame (if I don't like it). just get something cheap to dial in the fit and once you find it, you can get some higher end stem if you really want a brand or light weight.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Makes sense. But I see people saying that you get used to the slightly sharper/twitchier steering with a short stem.

Yeah I will see if my LBS will be cool with me trying a couple out. I'm thinking somewhere between 60-80mm would be the sweet spot

Itty

That sounds super short for a road bike. I recommend making changes in small increments if you really think you need a shorter stem. It makes it much easier to dial in where you feel best. Try out a 100mm first, that's the "standard" size for shortish people like us. Also, as has been said a few times in the last few pages, your flexibility will improve and you will feel much more comfortable in the "road position".

Regarding arm position while riding, you should never have your elbows locked. I think you already know this based on you saying your arms get sore when they are locked. Core strength will allow you to have a slight bend in your arms.

Regarding saddle fore/aft (also relates to how much weight you put on your arms), you should be able to take your arms off the handlebars when you are leaning forward in the road position. If you can't do this, it suggests you are putting to much weight on your arms. Moving the saddle further BACK (although counterintuitive) will allow you to put more weight on your legs and butt, and you will feel much more balanced. Stem length comes after you have the saddle in the proper place.

I recommend getting a bike fit for a good starting point and tweaking from there.

Itty

Also, this has probably been posted here already, but this is pretty much the most helpful site on the internet for bicycle information.

Sheldon Brown-Bicycle Technical Information

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Hmm, well I kinda did a "self-fit" per the few video's I watched. Used the string/weight method to dial in saddle position. I will play with it a bit more, I guess.
My main concern is I don't want to buy stuff without knowing exactly what I want, and why I want it, and it SEEMS to me that the handlebars are too far forward based on the fact that I have to really lean down quite a bit to keep them from being locked.

But maybe you're right. I'm not going to rush into buying anything else, I need moar experience under my belt which will hopefully help me figure out/dial in the perfect riding position

I'll check out that site too, thanks.

shlammed

iTrader: (8)

yeah it feels like you lean forward.
that's not a problem.


when I ride a mountain bike, I feel like im going to slip off the back... you sit so upright.