Just can't get comfy.. Considering giving up drop bars

[Scrappy]

Have any of you decided to give up drop bars because of riding comfort - or lack there of? I've been through 3 bikes and dozen of saddles (and spent thousands of $$$$), but I can't seem to get comfortable in a leaning forward position. The problem always comes back to the saddle area.

If I raise the seat up high enough to get full leg extension and no knee pain, the saddle (ANY saddle!) is doing one of these 3 things depending on how it's adjusted:

A)chafing away at the front of me
B)jammed up into the tops of my thighs
C) nose down in front, but pushing into sit-bones causing my piriformis muscle to cramp and sciatic pain.

If I lower the saddle enough so it doesn't offend anything "up there", my right knee hurts - and I ride flat pedals, so it can't be foot position related.

I have tried stem lengths of 70mm-90mm - my bars are FSA compact wing pro 38cm, my bike is a LHT size 50cm. I am 5'5" 135lb long legs and shorter but not super short arms. Raising the drops so they are higher than the saddle just feels plain weird, and doesn't seem like a long term solution.

DH and I are getting sick of the never ending swapping of saddles, seatposts stems, etc. and the associated $$$! His last comment was "just get rid of the drop bars and ride upright!" My concern is that upright is not an efficient way to travel for 40+ miles and at speeds of 14-15mph.

Have any of you made the switch from drops to say... trekking or butterfly bars? Or from drops to upright? How did it affect your riding style? Distance? Speed?

[Veronica]

Do you have issues when you ride more upright in your current set up?

Veronica

[radacrider]

Sounds like you need time with a very experienced fitter, to work with you on what is best for your body, whether that is drop bars or other type. If you only have problems in the drops and not when on the brake hoods, the fitter might pick up on some nuance that is going on.

The challenge with raising and lowering seats and bars/stems is that they also change your forward/rearward position since they are angled, which then affects knee over pedal spindle, fore and aft position of the handlebars.

Good luck.

[Catrin]

Scrappy,

I can't tolerate weight on my hands, so after a lot of work with a great fitter all of my bikes have riser mountain bars and trigger shifters. My longest ride so far as been 75 miles and my hands, and the rest of me, was quite happy.

I am not the fastest rider out there having only started riding about 1.5 years ago. My average speed is getting close to 14 mph as I get more fit and put more miles under my belt (depending on conditions of course). Is it the most efficient riding position? Certainly not, especially in the wind, but I can ride all day long without pain and, for me, this is what matters the most.

[Seajay]

If I raise the seat up high enough to get full leg extension and no knee pain, the saddle (ANY saddle!) is doing one of these 3 things depending on how it's adjusted:

A)chafing away at the front of me
B)jammed up into the tops of my thighs
C) nose down in front, but pushing into sit-bones causing my piriformis muscle to cramp and sciatic pain.

If I lower the saddle enough so it doesn't offend anything "up there", my right knee hurts - and I ride flat pedals, so it can't be foot position related.


The paragraph above raises a number of concerns. I think a good bike fitter would save you a lot of time and pain.

Full leg ext....likely too high.
You need to know EXACTLY your foot position as it comes thru the point of max extension (parallel with seat tube) then adjust saddle height to get 150 deg knee bend. Which is lower than most think. Consider that any fore-aft adjustment of the saddle from here will affect this measurement.

I ride flat pedals, so it can't be foot position related Yes it can. depending on the set up and the shoes you use....there are a myriad of foot control/saddle height/knee stability issues that can come into play.

[Catrin]

I ride flat pedals, so it can't be foot position related Yes it can. depending on the set up and the shoes you use....there are a myriad of foot control/saddle height/knee stability issues that can come into play.

I concur - I had no choice but to return to clipping in because my knees didn't like my flat pedals. As long as my feet/legs were in the right spot they were fine, but of course it is challenging to keep it that way.

Converting to flat bars is expensive, is there a good fitter in your area that you can visit to discuss all of this with? A good fitting is also expensive, but you don't want to make that change to your bike unless you are pretty confident that it will solve your problem. For me it was the perfect choice, but it may well be that some other solution will work better for you.

[Scrappy]

*Thank you**Thank you**Thank you**Thank you* For your responses. Catrin, I'm with you as far as my riding goals. I'd like to be able to ride all day without pain - at modest speeds. I don't care about going more than 15mph.

The pain and discomfort is when I'm on the hoods, almost more than on the drops.

I'm about to go plop down a $100 for a fit kit to get a good starting point, until I can track down a real pro-fitter - hopefully one with experience in women's issues.

A good friend is seeing a physical therapist who specializes in bike related issues. He is going to get me her info. Hopefully I can get this sorted out this summer - for good! It is very disheartening being in pain every single time I ride more than 10 miles.

Yesterday my son and I did a mere 22 miles (I was on a Specialized Toupe saddle) and my right glute medius+minimus+piriformis has been cramped up all day. The last 4 miles of the ride were miserable. At this point I am not looking forward to 2 day 140 mile group ride coming up in a couple of weeks.

[Scrappy]

Oh Veronica - I'm sorry I didn't respond directly earlier... I still get uncomfortable with the bars up high, but I've not spent much time with them that way because with my narrow drop bars it feels so strange, and not in a good way. The LBS that I bought the bike from sets up all the new LHT builds with the bars way above the saddle, but the stock bars are much wider than the model I have.

[Roadtrip]

You say the stock bars are wider them the ones you ave now... If you havnt seen a fitter, are you surebthe bars are wide enough? Sounds like with all the $$$ you've spent on parts, you could have paid for the fitting.

Good luck in your search for comfort!!

Shannon

[Cataboo]

Didn't you say the other day that you really enjoyed the ruby?

How did you come to decide on the LHT?

Maybe post a picture of yourself - but really, you probably need a fitting. It's expensive to figure out all this stuff on your own & its frustrating.

My knees are happiest when I've got my seat all the way back, on a setback seatpost with a 73 degree seat angle. i can't get that on a surly - most of their seat angles are 75 degrees and I don't find that good on my knees at all. You said you were comfortable on a ruby in a post recently - and they do have slacker seat angles than LHTs have and they tend to be a relaxed geometry - so maybe your problems getting your knees happy have more to do with the LHT? And if you solve that you might be happier with other saddles.

Also - what size cranks are you using? I switch my cranks to 165s because that's easier on my knees.

I use the fsa k-wing carbon handlebars:
http://www.amazon.com/FSA-K-Wing-Car.../dp/B00020VTFI

If you look at those, they're raised at the flat portion, which gives a little bit more height and I mostly ride with my hands on that flat portion... I also get them in 42 cms taking in account that my hands are going to be on the flat most of the time & using that measurement for what size handlebars I want (I know, noone else does that)... So I'm fairly upright when I ride... I don't really use my drops, the sides of those fsa kwing handlebars drop down where the hoods are and it kinda cradles my forearm and I use that as my more aggressive position.

a

[Kathi]

Have any of you decided to give up drop bars because of riding comfort - or lack there of? I've been through 3 bikes and dozen of saddles (and spent thousands of $$$$), but I can't seem to get comfortable in a leaning forward position. The problem always comes back to the saddle area.

If I raise the seat up high enough to get full leg extension and no knee pain, the saddle (ANY saddle!) is doing one of these 3 things depending on how it's adjusted:

A)chafing away at the front of me
B)jammed up into the tops of my thighs
C) nose down in front, but pushing into sit-bones causing my piriformis muscle to cramp and sciatic pain.

If I lower the saddle enough so it doesn't offend anything "up there", my right knee hurts - and I ride flat pedals, so it can't be foot position related.

I have tried stem lengths of 70mm-90mm - my bars are FSA compact wing pro 38cm, my bike is a LHT size 50cm. I am 5'5" 135lb long legs and shorter but not super short arms. Raising the drops so they are higher than the saddle just feels plain weird, and doesn't seem like a long term solution.

DH and I are getting sick of the never ending swapping of saddles, seatposts stems, etc. and the associated $$$! His last comment was "just get rid of the drop bars and ride upright!" My concern is that upright is not an efficient way to travel for 40+ miles and at speeds of 14-15mph.

Have any of you made the switch from drops to say... trekking or butterfly bars? Or from drops to upright? How did it affect your riding style? Distance? Speed?

Are your handlebars currently higher than your saddle now? I have short arms, that was the major stickler to all my fit issues for years until I saw a good bike fitter. On both my custom and stock bikes, including my mtn bike, my handlebars and saddle are the same height. That setting puts me in a perfect neutral position, solved saddle, shoulder and numb hand issues. Before that I was way too low and when I rode in my drops my thighs would hit my ribs.

Due to undiagnosed SI joint issues my fitter raised my handlebars and I absolutely hated it. I couldn't get comfortable, didn't help the SI joint issues and so we went back to my normal position.

Whenever I have an ache on my bike I check my body position. Usually my shoulders have moved up to my ears, my foot is pushed forward in my shoe, etc. I rode past a woman yesterday whose handlebars were very high. She had her shoulders pushed up to her ears, her elbows out away from her body and her back was twisted at an odd angle. The bike was a comfort bike but she definitely was not comfortable. Even on a comfort bike a good fitting would have helped her alot.

I checked the head tube length of the Ruby. It is longer than the LHT head tube. Head tube length was my reason for building a custom frame. None of the stock frames had enough head tube length to accomodate my short arms. Maybe that's why the Ruby felt more comfortable?

[smilingcat]

There are number of issues with bike fitting.

It's not just the leg extension.

The width of the bar in relationship to your shoulder width.
Seat width in relation to your pelvis width.
top tube length
height of stem in relationship to the seat...
amount of drop in the handlebar. Women specific handlebar have less of a drop than a "standard" handlebar.

As for riding on the hood:
either a fit, lack of core strength, lack of strength in arm and hands.

riding with hands on the drops:
again fit, lack of core strength, lack of strength in arm and hand and lack of flexibility.

there are many things that does affect your comfort.

You may have issue with flexibility. Warm up before a ride and stretch out.

[Sky King]

Sounds like not much fun. We have many friends and customers on LHT's with a variety of handlebar styles, albatross, moustache & drops. Prior to spending any more money take a few minutes and read the Bike Hermits blog about touring bike fit - some of it will be redundant for you but perhaps you will glean some minor adjusting you can do to help for the time being.
Good luck!
I have been fighting comfort on my Gilles Berthoud Saddle and after measuring my sit bones (duh) realized the issue was the saddle width and shape (pear), went back to my fizik vitesse (t shape) and while the nose is a bit long the sit bones are very happy. With the change I also lowered my Nitto Grand Randonneur handlebars about a centimeter so totally get the tweaking.

[Kathi]

I wish I had all the money I spent on handlebars, stems, seatposts etc. trying to get bikes to fit. It was all about frame geometry, seat tube angle and head tube length. If the geometry is off you may get a close fit but never a perfect fit. Something will always be "not quite right". It took a good bike fitter to solve the mystery for me.

[GLC1968]

While I agree that a good fitting is in order, it may simply be that you haven't found the right saddle yet. No matter how you set up your bike, if your saddle is a torture device, you will have problems.

Some people have no saddle problems. Some get lucky with the first or second one they try. I'm sorry to say that others (like me) spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars over YEARS before finding the one that virutally disappears underneath you.

Saddle width is important, but it's a very easy metric to figure out. The harder ones are saddle shape and saddle cushioning/padding. Saddle shape is critical. Do you need a cut out? Or how about an indentation instead? How wide of a nose? T-shaped or pear shaped? Flat or curved? If the shape is wrong, it will affect how you sit on it and how you sit will absolutely affect comfort, chaffing, nerve issues and the like.

Unfortunately, there is no clear way to determine the best saddle for you (and your bike and your position on that bike). Trial and error. And not just switching them out all the time, but trying one for awhile, evaluating what was wrong about it, determining what caused that 'wrong' and then finding a saddle that doesn't have that same feature and trying again. So on and so on. It's very annoying, but trust me....once you find the right one, it's like a magical new world (no joke!).