Thanks for the input guys! I got up this morning and my body informed me that, while it was feeling better, another day of rest is in order. I'm sitting here trying to convince myself that three days off isn't gonna set me back ... I'm just too impatient! *laugh*

I did see a doctor, Cathleen, last summer before I bought the first bike (they're like potato chips, I've decided ... can't have just one ). He heartily endorsed it and gave me some muscle relaxers to keep in the cupboard for emergencies. I probably should have taken one yesterday but I try to avoid them as they put me out of commission for a good 24 hours. I've been sucking down ibuprofin like candy and just taking it slow and easy, gently stretching the muscles out every hour or so. I'm not really in trouble until the muscles down my right leg start twitching, so relatively speaking this is actually an improvement.

I wish we had a decent bike shop here to take it to, bounceswoosh. At some point this summer I'm gonna take a day off and haul the bike to Spokane for a real fitting. I swapped out the stem, seatpost, handlebars and saddle (several saddles until I settled on this one) and have been slowly adjusting the fit. I've only had the neck and shoulder pain once before and it seems to be when I get really tired and my upper body starts sagging over the bars.

The back pain is primarily weak supporting muscles that I mistakenly protected for years thinking that all pain was bad and not realizing that I was actually damaging them by being overprotective. Their job is to protect that disc but they can't do that when they're weak. They're slowly getting stronger and I've been able to do things this year on the bike that would have put me in bed on drugs for three days last year. The disc itself will be replaced as soon as disc replacement is approved in the US (I refuse to consider disc removal and vertebrae fusing, which is the traditional method for dealing with this problem here) and strong lower back muscles are the difference in recovery time for that surgery. (Buring the weight off can't hurt either )

I'm just too impatient ... want it all now, that's my problem! *laugh*