Vedz1B wrote:…..I'm 43 and my back is giving me jip so that's more or less ruled out a low handlebar/racing position. ...
by which you mean "I've decided to buy something with flat handlebars"...?
FWIW there are plenty of bikes that can be/are set up with dropped handlebars such that the tops/hoods are as high as you might find with flat bars. The idea of dropped bars is not that you automatically have to contort yourself into an uncomfortable position (although there are plenty of faux-racers in which you do) it is more that you have more choices about the riding position. That usually equals more comfort, not less; my idea of bike riding hell is to be stuck in one position, and many flat bar setups do exactly that.
If your back hurts when you cycle it is worth asking yourself a few questions eg
- is your core strength adequate? If not maybe some other exercises might be worthwhile
- is your riding position good? If in doubt get someone else to review it.
- are you using the gears correctly? It isn't at all unusual for less well practiced riders to want to 'mash' the pedals in a very high gear. This is rarely the best way, and very commonly causes all kinds of problems, back pain being one of them.
- are your legs the same length as one another? If not you may not notice when walking/sitting normally, but cycling (without appropriate adaptations) may force the spine into a different (side to side) curvature and this most often results in terrible back pain.
My advice to folk that are thinking of buying a new bike (because they are hoping that the new one will be more comfortable) is usually that they need to understand what riding position they really need. Within limits you can experiment with such variations in position without spending a fortune, using almost any bike. Having got comfy, you can buy a new bike, safe in the knowledge that you can easily set the bike up the way you need it to be. Buying bikes on a whim, looks alone and/ or on the basis of a short test ride is almost like playing Russian roulette by comparison.
FWIW it is comparatively easy to make the gearing on a bike higher, but making it lower is rather difficult. Requests for the former are mainly the province of folk riding small-wheeled bikes (which have naturally lower gears because of the small wheels, all things being equal) and people that have not actually ridden very far yet; request for lower gears are by comparison much more common, and it is a less easy problem to address. Given that most bikes have at least twice as many gears as are actually needed for most leisure riding, there is little downside to buying a bike with gears that at first seem unnecessarily low at the bottom end.
cheers
