Couple of Newbie Questions?

[amy26]

Are you around Houston?
If yes go see Boone's cycles (Medical Center/Hermann Park area) for a good fit, or Bay Area Cycling in Webster.
Good luck!

Yes, I'm in Houston and not too far from the Med Center so I'll look into Boone's - thanks!!

If you go to a PT who does bike fits to have your back and wrist issues treated, your bike fit will very likely be covered by insurance.

The PT will also teach you proper posture and positioning on the bike, and give you core exercises to do off the bike.

Wow, great idea -I'm going to do a some research on that.

....make sure you do several smaller organized group rides before and get comfortable with starting in a group and riding in groups because you will be doing just that...

The other bit of advice I would offer is get used to spending TITS ( time in the saddle) time of at least 6-8 hours on a single ride since the first day is very long. The TITS time is almost more important than speed, at least in my experience.

You can totally do it and it will be a unique experience. Some people love it, others hate it and some change their minds from year to year.

Thank you! I found a couple of smaller organized rides is September & October that I plan on doing, 30-50 miles.

I didn't have wrist pain, but I did have the shoulder thing when I first started riding for more than maybe an hour. I think part of it was the stress of being new at it.

As has been said, make sure your bike fits and that core thing is so important, too. Let your midsection do a lot of the work and take some of the strain off of your wrists/hands/shoulders/neck.

I'm hoping your right about the newness causing some of the discomfort - overall I think my body just needs to get better conditioned for cycling. Seems this "core" concept is going to have to be a conscious effort!

Call them and ask them if adjustments are included.

Be sure to ask them questions and tell them where you feel discomfort.

Thanks again Tulip, sounds like these are good questions to ask of wherever I end up going. I'm going to look into the idea of the PT bike fit first as KnottedYet suggested on the hope that I might get insurance to cover it.

This forum is awesome - thanks everyone for the good advice. I'm going to do another 15+ mile ride this weekend and try to schedule a bike fit for next week!