How well was your bike fitted? Was it fitted to you or were you fitted to the bike. A bike should feel comfortable, however, being a new rider it may take time for your body to adjust

Since I'm an experienced rider I'll tell you my experience as I picked up my new bike on Sat. I already have 122 miles on her. The advice my fitter gave me was to take it easy the first few weeks on the bike. So instead of riding 50 miles the first day I did 22!

The first rides (10 and 22 miles) I noticed the saddle. Same issue, in the pubic area. It didn't make me sore but it felt irritating. The saddle is the same one that I was using on all my bikes, only brand new. At first I thought something was wrong with set up, however, I have a lot of confidence in the person who fit my bike so I let it go.

Tuesday I did 34 miles and started out noticing the saddle but by the end of the ride had forgotten about it. Again no lingering soreness. Yesterday, we did a 26 mile ride and the saddle bothered me less, and on today's ride of 25 miles, (including a 5 miles downhill in the drops) I didn't think about it. I think that after a few more rides the saddle will be a non issue.

So far nothing else bothers me, I find the bike very comfortable. This bike is custom so it was designed to fit me.

Time on the bike is the ticket to longer rides. Don't push yourself to hard to soon. I started this season recovering from knee surgery and basically was at ground zero. Instead of trying to ride long miles I kept my rides around 1 hr, rode 5 days a week and did flat routes. If I tried to ride at my normal pace it wore me out to much so it was important for me to take it easy. After I got comfortable with the 1 hr rides then I made 2 of my rides a little longer and started adding hills. As the summer went on I was able to increase my time on the bike. I'm not sure that I will be able to do a century this year but there's always next year.

As far as the wheezing goes, I have exercise induced asthma and I use my inhaler 20 minutes before I ride my bike. It really helps to reduce the wheezing and climbing is much easier.