Just bought my first road bike and put it on a trainer for the winter. Still tweaking the saddle and such for a more comfortable ride but I’m not there yet.
I brought a hex key to adjust my seat and just went riding. Test, adjust, test, adjust.
Some of the things I’ve spent money on that has not done anything for my riding comfort is a seat dampener, so maybe skip that one if you were thinking about it.
There’s also a break-in period for any setting, I’ve found. My ass used to hurt a lot after riding a bit but now it doesn’t. Your body will adjust- the important thing is to make sure you’re not riding in position that puts unnecessary stress on your spine or something.
I’m a big fan of swept back handlebars which are very out of fashion in the US for some reason. Everyone has handlebars like they’re trying to win the Tour de France but unless you are the type to time yourself and beat some pace does it really make sense to trade comfort away to gain a small efficiency advantage? I don’t think so. If you bike leisurely or as a commuter, look into handlebars that allow a more comfortable upright posture.
My bars have a 400mm rise and a 90 degree sweep. There is no greater luxury.
It sounds so cliche, but bike fit. It’s not even really an option on a road bike, at least in my experiences. Sure, on my mountain bike I can comfortably ride away like a slouchy gorilla flopped on the couch, but it’s got like 170mm of full suspension travel and this big cushy seat, and honestly you are always murder gripping holding on for dear life so you don’t even really notice anything about creature comforts.
That road bike though, I mean it looks awesome, but that thing is like riding a rock. It’s stiff as hell, everything is locked into place and there’s no give anywhere. Not to mention clipless pedals, and yeah, it’s uncomfortable unless someone slots you into that exact spot, at that exact angle, and I swear to god that magic spot must be like microns wide, we are talking human hair width kind of stuff, and no one will ever convince me otherwise. It’s like magic. You get someone to put you into that exact spot, and you could probably ride that thing all day long in your boxer shorts if you wanted to. Otherwise, it’s a death sentence for your genitals and your butt cheeks, not to mention all kinds of other soreness and unpleasantness.
Just go get a fit. They usually cost like a billion bucks, but there’s no cost too high for comfort.
I just replaced the standard seat with a bigger, more padded seat meant for a totally different kind of bike so I wasn’t just sitting on basically a metal wedgie device. Looks a bit funny having a beach cruiser style seat on a mountain bike, but IDGAF about its aesthetic. I care about my ass not hurting.
Next thing I’d do is probably replace the handlebars with a Y style one instead of the straight bar. I’m not tryna go hella fast that I need to bend forward to lower my resistance.
Make sure your saddle is the right width for your butt bones. A bike shop can measure for you.
That’s 50% of the battle. The grim reality is for some people, there’s only usually 1 or 2 styles of seats that will be comfortable for them, and it can be brutally expensive to figure this out if you try to do so yourself (not trying to push a fit, but…). Some people seem to be saddle ambivalent, I got a buddy like that, like you could stick him on a plastic 1970s banana seat and he’d be fine. But if you are like me, my butts pretty selective.
Case in point, I’m a stick of a person (6 foot, 165lbs), and for some unknown reason I have a crazy wide sitbone width, like my road bike saddle is something crazy like 168mm wide. Figuring that out was half the battle. But I still couldn’t get comfortable, and I’ve tried pretty much every manufacturer between my mountain bike and my road bike in the first half dozen years. My findings were for mountain bikes, my saddle has to be a WTB saddle, and it doesn’t really matter which one, but WTB or bust. It seems to be something with the general profile of the shape, not so much the padding. Whereas with my road bike, Specialized branded saddles seem to work best. Especially the ones with the Mimic insert, which are actually marketed towards ladies, but my bike fitter put me on one a few years ago and I swear by that thing now.
I did that and got a jcob. It feels great at a very specific angle but i guess i haven’t perfected it yet, or a childhood injury to my left arm just means I’m gonna be uncomfortable leaning on my handlebars.
Might need upswept bars or a taller stem. It can be bike specific - my MTB is more comfortable leaning over a bit more, my cargo bike is better quite a bit more upright.
It’s for sure a process.
Unless you get a bike fit, it can take a long while, a lot of adjustments, and probably some new components (saddle, handlebars, grips, etc.).
Is there anything in particular that bothers you during a longer ride session? Hands? Shoulders? Feet? Ass?
If so, find what might be causing those issues (i.e. YouTube bike fitting videos), and then work from there.
When I was tweaking my road bike, I would literally go out on rides with some hex keys, adjust one thing just a little, and see how that felt. Eventually, I nailed it down, so even a 240km ride was quite comfortable.
Now, getting the same comfort out of my vintage mountain bike or folding bike hasn’t been so easy. LOL
and probably some new components
Especially saddles in my experience. Saddles are like shoes: even two different models from the same manufacturer can fit very differently. Posture makes a difference, too. I have a box full of saddles that I have accumulated over years of trial-and-error on various bikes.
The frustrating thing about saddles, I guess just like shoes, is that no review will let you know whether it will work for you or not.
I also have a collection of saddles, several of which are “the best saddle you can get” offering “extreme comfort”, yet they aren’t on my bike(s).
Then new riders get the idea that big, soft, cushioned saddles will make them more comfortable. For most people, this type of saddle just makes things worse. And those “skinny, flat, hard” saddles might actually be the best option for some!
I believe there are Selle Italia dealers who offer demo programs for their saddles. I’m sure other brands do the same, but it’s a very rare service. Honestly, more bike shops should do it themselves, because I guarantee they’d sell more saddles if people were confident they’d be able to find the right one without buying one after another.
Bike fit and all helped, but I’d previously used a tutorial to do it myself and that was good enough.
What really helped was getting a comfortable saddle, Selle’s TRK isn’t expensive and other cyclists have laughed at how much of a “couch” it is, but I rode that sucker from San Francisco down to LA along PCH, and it wasn’t my butt that got me stopping.
Bike fit is the route I took. I got a report with optional measurements for me, which I’ve used to set up other bikes since the fit.
Outside of a fit, first check saddle height and angle. Checking the distance from saddle to handlebar is harder (well, measuring it is relatively easy, knowing what it should be for you is the hard part).
But after the fit, I definitely felt stretched out on my old bike that now sits on my trainer. I changed the seat post to a zero offset post, and that did help some, but I’d have to change the stem to get closer, and for sentimental reasons, I’m hesitant. When I had the fit done, I wasn’t using that bike much, so it wasn’t worth getting it fitted, but then a few months later I started doing indoor riding using zwift, and that bike is on the trainer. So, in hindsight, I wish I had gotten it fitted.
I got a new bike the other day. I got the handlebars set to match my fitted bike perfectly for height and angle, but after a ride, my wrist hurt (and still does a day and a half later). I think the saddle is too far back with the offset seat post, so I was leaning too much on the bars, making my wrist hurt. I’m surprised at how much it hurts, honestly. A zero offset seat post is on its way to me now (and lighter carbon fiber to boot).
My wife is suggesting I get a new fit done. Probably not a bad idea. But I think I’ll get it sorted with this seat post.
Sore wrists can mean your seat is a big too high too. Or your reach is too far. Try holding your bars 10mm back from your hoods for a bit, and see if your hands still hurt. It’s not always the stem either, sometimes bars can have too much reach as well, it kind of works in concert. But yeah pull your hands back for a bit and it’ll definitely feel kind of weird but just focus on seeing if your wrists still hurt after riding in that position for a bit.
If it’s better it’s your reach. If it’s not, drop the post like just a hair, and see if it’s better. It could be seat position too for sure, but I believe it’s usually reach to look at first if it’s in the wrists.
Oh I’m pretty sure it’s a reach issue; that’s where I was going with the talk of getting a new seat post. Everything else lines up almost perfectly. I didn’t mention that the two bikes have an almost identical geometry, within a millimeter or two in every dimension, so it was easy to compare them.
What about the reach on the bars though? Look that up to make sure there’s not a big difference there, before buying the seat post. The bars on my newest bike are 15mm shorter reach, so the stem is actually 10mm longer than the one I was running before.
They’re actually the exact same bars and stems - both are Cannondale 3s (the new bike has newer versions with different graphics, but the length/angle/reach/drop/sweep/etc is identical). When I put the bikes next to each other and rotated the bars on the new bike to match the old, it was like I was seeing double for a moment. The component groups are slightly different - the CAAD12 has an Ultegra Di2 R8050 group, while the SSEvo has a mechanical R7020 hydraulic disc setup with the huge reservoirs - but the distance from the back of the bars to the curve in the brake hoods is identical, too.
There are occasionally advantages to being a Cannondale nut. ;) (I also have an old R500-ish model built on the 2.8 frame from the early 90s with a custom paint job, back when they were made in Pennsylvania. I know these frames have little to do with that one, even though the CAAD12 is a descendant of the the 2.8. But I inexplicably like Cannondale. There’s no sane reason for it. My gravel bike is a steel Velo Orange, though, so I’m not completely nuts.)
You did make me think of something, though: I’ll double check that the angle of the bars is the same. It’s possible I made the new bike’s angle too low by accident. That would certainly contribute to this issue.
I actually already ordered the seat post. and it’s on the way. :) Given the extremely similar geometry of the two frames, I assumed I would need it when I bought the bike. I thought I might avoid it when I saw how much adjustment the saddle had, but after the first ride, I was convinced that I’m going to need the post. If nothing else, it’ll give me more adjustability in the saddle position than I have now (the saddle is all the way forward, so the only adjustments available make the reach longer) and save a little weight.
As similar as the two frames are, the saddles are completely different. The CAAD12 has a Specialized Power Arc saddle that I got during the fit. The Evo has a Selle SMP Dynamic Saddle. The latter is longer than the Power Arc, so it’s hard to compare the two for position. If I measure from the nose, which is what’s given in my fit report, I don’t get the same effective reach. I tried to use the rear of the saddle to line them up, but that obviously hasn’t worked. I’m hoping the SMP saddle works for me; if not, I’ll get another Power Arc saddle for the SSEvo. (I intend to keep both bikes long term.)
Definitely check the angle. Even having those hoods mounted down the curve a few more mm can knock everything out. These friggin road bikes lol.
Sounds like you have it roughly figured out though.
I gave myself nerve damage due to poor bike fit, thankfully it healed. After that I did a full overhaul of my bike fit. Flipped my stem up and raised it a bit with spacers. Removed bar tape and brifters, adjusted bar angle to maintain neutral wrist position in the drops. Installed brifters and positioned them for neutral wrist position on the hoods. I got a saddle with a large cutout and positioned it slightly farther back and down to put less weight on my hands. After that I could ride centuries or more without nerve damage to my hands or my perineum.
I also shifted the cleats on my shoes as far towards my arch as they would go and adjusted my seat height accordingly. This puts less stress on calves and Achilles and gives your posterior chain more direct connection to the bike.
I really like Hobsen saddles. They’re easy to adjust and they keep the pressure in the right spots.
I’m mostly riding standing up, not sitting. Best investments were quality large flat pedals and a nice pair of shoes to go along with them (bonus points for the soles actually being made for spiked pedals so they won’t shred too quickly).
