What Style of Bike For Comfort To Replace My Hybrid

[pjclinch]

Hey guys i just popped out on my bike, these winged bar grips seem to be a real problem for me.

They may well feel better if you rotate them a bit. I have something like that, didn't like them flat, do like them angled down. It's easy enough to experiment and see what works best, you'll just need an Allen key to loosen and re-tighten.

Pete.

[pjclinch]

If you are leaning on the bars because of poor position it should be quite hard to take your hands off the bars when sat like that without moving your body. But it may be that you're just in the habit of straight-arming with hunched shoulders, which is a common enough habit but an unhelpful and unnecessary one. Try relaxing your shoulders, letting them drop, and see if you can rest your hands lightly on the bars without leaning, maybe bending your elbows?

(To get the bars up a bit, the stem linking the fork to the bars can be turned up the other way to raise them a little.)

Pete.

[531colin]

This is my bike showing the bar and seat height, i have put the seat down 25mm from where it was before. My bike does not allow much adjustment of the bar height.

when i lock my knee i am raised out of my seat

Saddle looks a bit on the low side now.
To raise the bars for free you need to remove the handlebar stem and re-fit it up the other way.
Bike is “only just” big enough for you, but you can “grow” it a bit by buying and fitting a handlebar stem with more rise or riser handlebars.
If it transpires that you can’t get the saddle far enough back you can buy seatposts with more layback.
So plenty of options!

[freiston]

[To the OP]

Please don't take this the wrong way. You've mentioned that you're overweight and unfit and that you're putting too much weight on your hands. It also seems that you could be riding straight-armed/locked elbows. You've also mentioned how harsh the ride is and that the bike is a bone-shaker, that when your leg is locked straight, you are lifted out of the saddle, and that you are considering padded shorts .

I'm wondering if your harsh ride is a lot to do with your weight, core strength and riding style. If you're keeping your weight distributed through the hands and the saddle and not using your legs as suspension (putting most if not all your weight onto the pedals) when the going gets rough, then the ride will feel harsh and your hands and backside will take a beating.

An improved bike fit will go a long way to alleviate some of this, but also will improved technique and fitness - they all go together. Irrespective of style of bike, you will need all of them (though style of bike will determine, to a degree, the execution/application of all three). Padded shorts are not a substitute for the above and nor are they a substitute for suspension. They're not a way of reducing weight impact but one way of avoiding sores and chafes from friction (personally I'm not a fan).

[pjclinch]

Padded shorts are not a substitute for the above and nor are they a substitute for suspension. They're not a way of reducing weight impact but one way of avoiding sores and chafes from friction (personally I'm not a fan).

Agreed, padded shorts ought to be a way of making a good thing better on a long ride, not a way of making something tolerable at all (see also padded mitts, not a Bad Thing but if you need them to ride at all then something's amiss)

Pete.

[freiston]

Actually i think these winged grips could be causing me the discomfort in my hands. I do feel as though im leaning forward too much. I will post pics soon of me sitting on the bike.

For what it's worth, though a lot of people swear by those ergonomic shaped (you call them "winged") grips, on the whole I do not like them but prefer a round grip - I like to change my hand position whilst riding and the shape does not lend itself much to that. I prefer something a bit spongy - not particularly for cushioning but because I prefer the feel of it in my hands. I always cycle with mitts on too, unless the weather dictates gloves. Again, not particularly for cushioning. I've been riding with mitts since the 80s and I can't imagine riding without them. Also, I have eczema and decades of topical steroid use has made my skin rather delicate. That and the fact that it's very difficult to find grips that don't contain eczema-exacerbating rubber, make mitts rather beneficial for me.

[bertie1969]

They may well feel better if you rotate them a bit. I have something like that, didn't like them flat, do like them angled down. It's easy enough to experiment and see what works best, you'll just need an Allen key to loosen and re-tighten.

Pete.

many thanks for your reply, i had no idea that they could be rotated, i will reposition them and see if that helps.

[bertie1969]

If you are leaning on the bars because of poor position it should be quite hard to take your hands off the bars when sat like that without moving your body. But it may be that you're just in the habit of straight-arming with hunched shoulders, which is a common enough habit but an unhelpful and unnecessary one. Try relaxing your shoulders, letting them drop, and see if you can rest your hands lightly on the bars without leaning, maybe bending your elbows?

(To get the bars up a bit, the stem linking the fork to the bars can be turned up the other way to raise them a little.)

Pete.

my seat has only about 6mm of movement left when moving it back, i will move it forward to see if it makes any difference. i will rotate the bars to try and raise them a little too. I have slightly hunched shoulders im afraid so that will not be helping.

[Jdsk]

I wouldn't do it in that order. I'd get the saddle right front-rear and high-low before starting on the front. And if you can add some more photos of your position when you've done the saddle we can comment on whether it needs to go further back than it can at present, see comment above.

Photos seated on the saddle, both feet on pedals, pedalling past the camera. Video if possible.

Jonathan

[bertie1969]

Saddle looks a bit on the low side now.
To raise the bars for free you need to remove the handlebar stem and re-fit it up the other way.
Bike is “only just” big enough for you, but you can “grow” it a bit by buying and fitting a handlebar stem with more rise or riser handlebars.
If it transpires that you can’t get the saddle far enough back you can buy seatposts with more layback.
So plenty of options!

Many thanks for your reply. I will raise the saddle a bit more. Im afraid the stem is symmetrical and turning it wont make any difference. I can rotate the bar slightly to raise it a tad. The saddle only had 6mm of travel left which i have not moved it. I will look into buy a stem riser.

[bertie1969]

[To the OP]

Please don't take this the wrong way. You've mentioned that you're overweight and unfit and that you're putting too much weight on your hands. It also seems that you could be riding straight-armed/locked elbows. You've also mentioned how harsh the ride is and that the bike is a bone-shaker, that when your leg is locked straight, you are lifted out of the saddle, and that you are considering padded shorts .

I'm wondering if your harsh ride is a lot to do with your weight, core strength and riding style. If you're keeping your weight distributed through the hands and the saddle and not using your legs as suspension (putting most if not all your weight onto the pedals) when the going gets rough, then the ride will feel harsh and your hands and backside will take a beating.

An improved bike fit will go a long way to alleviate some of this, but also will improved technique and fitness - they all go together. Irrespective of style of bike, you will need all of them (though style of bike will determine, to a degree, the execution/application of all three). Padded shorts are not a substitute for the above and nor are they a substitute for suspension. They're not a way of reducing weight impact but one way of avoiding sores and chafes from friction (personally I'm not a fan).

Many thanks for your reply. I will look into getting a bike fit. I will avoid the padded shorts too. I hunch slightly anyway so that does not help either.

[freiston]

my seat has only about 6mm of movement left when moving it back, i will move it forward to see if it makes any difference.

I'm sorry but I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that you can only get your saddle back another 6mm so you're going to move it forward because you can move it further forward therefore making a bigger difference? If you have too much weight on your hands, then I really think you should be moving the saddle back as far as it will go, even if that is only 6mm, rather than moving it forwards.

Remember that you don't sit on a bike as such (it's a saddle, not a seat), but riding a bike is a dynamic state where you are shifting weight between the three contact points (saddle, handlebars and pedals). The stronger you are, the more you push against the pedals and the more you can hold your torso at an angle, which means the less weight your saddle and handlebars are supporting and the more on the pedals, but it's dynamic, so sometimes you will be pushing the pedals so hard that the body on the saddle is just a light touch with hardly any weight but other times you will be firmly in the saddle spinning the cranks with little effort and no weight on the bars or the pedals. Other times you might be out of the saddle, knees bent but weight on the pedals and a light grip on the bars, letting the bike bounce over the rough surface whilst your torso and head remain steady.

[freiston]

Many thanks for your reply. I will look into getting a bike fit. I will avoid the padded shorts too. I hunch slightly anyway so that does not help either.

Don't get a bike fit but instead go over Colin's guide - apply it, understand it, appreciate what's happening when you change things - work it out. Then you'll get a lot further to understanding and resolving your issues.

[freiston]

Saddle looks a bit on the low side now.
To raise the bars for free you need to remove the handlebar stem and re-fit it up the other way.
Bike is “only just” big enough for you, but you can “grow” it a bit by buying and fitting a handlebar stem with more rise or riser handlebars.
If it transpires that you can’t get the saddle far enough back you can buy seatposts with more layback.
So plenty of options!

Many thanks for your reply. I will raise the saddle a bit more. Im afraid the stem is symmetrical and turning it wont make any difference. I can rotate the bar slightly to raise it a tad. The saddle only had 6mm of travel left which i have not moved it. I will look into buy a stem riser.

Your stem is not 90° from the steerer but is angled downwards to the front (even if not dramatically). Turning it will make it angle upwards to the front - effectively raising the height of the handlebar.

[rareposter]

I will look into buy a stem riser.

Before you start buying things (and before you start moving things around too much), you need to stop and take stock of exactly what you're trying to achieve and you need some understanding of what happens (to the bike and to your position) when you do X, Y and Z.

The comment about the stem is correct; it is angled and running it one way or another will raise or lower the bars, sometimes quite substantially.
This is the same stem, flipped:

Don't get a bike fit but instead go over Colin's guide - apply it, understand it, appreciate what's happening when you change things - work it out. Then you'll get a lot further to understanding and resolving your issues.

I would argue that, much as Colin's guide is very good, if it's approached without the relevant understanding and crucially without the benefit of being able to see yourself and know what's correct, it can result in even more confusion. Doubly so when the issue is a rather subjective one of "comfort". I'd actually go the other way and say it needs a professional fit with someone who understands physio and can view the rider objectively.

It also has to be balanced against the point that many riders don't know what "correct" is supposed to feel like and if they're used to a "wrong" position (let's say they've habitually ridden with the saddle 2" too low all their life cos no-one has ever told them otherwise) then putting them in the "right" position will feel completely "wrong"!

At one end of the scale here, the "comfort" could be dramatically improved by the simple and free step of lowering the tyre pressure a bit; at the other end of the scale it may be that the bike is completely the wrong size or type and the OP needs a whole new bike!
[from the pics posted it looks basically the right size although the riding position with the head tipped down doesn't look normal]