Quote Originally Posted by lph View Post
Forgive me while I bombard you with questions. But this makes the situation clearer to me, and may possibly give you tips to exercises to try too:

- do you ride clipless/with straps or with "loose feet"
- can you stand and pedal?
- if so can you stand and pedal only with a lot of opposing force (uphill, hard gear) or can you stand and pedal also when the pedals are spinning quite easily?
- can you stand and coast?
- can you stand and coast on one foot, with the other foot unweighted or completely off the pedal?
- sitting on the saddle, can you take both feet off the pedals and still feel in control?
- roughly how much percentage weight would you say you have on your hands, when riding seated normally?

Just trying to get a feel for how your balance is. Personally I have quite low handlebars, and won't put my butt on my saddle until I know I'm up to speed and well-balanced.
Until about a month ago I rode BMX pedals with no toe clips. I now ride clipless with spd/platform pedals and clip in all the time now.

I have never tried to stand and pedal, or to stand and coast. I have started to coast from time to time with my butt raised off the saddle a bit to relieve it. I am trying to get to the point where I can stand and coast.

I have never tried to take both feet off the pedals deliberately - though I suspect that would be quite scary However, back before I got my BMX pedals, my feet bounced off my original plastic platform pedals on a regular basis so I learned how to deal with it - and was quite thankful for my BMX pedals when I got them

My riding position is quite upright, most of my weight is on my saddle. I've arthritic hands and I can't put a large amount of weight on them (hence my expensive conversion from road to mountain bars).

My fitter is reluctant to raise my saddle to where it should be until I can solve this. He is afraid that I will fall over & hurt myself if we do this too quickly - and I think he is right. So we are trying to, basically, trick my head by raising it just a few mm at a time. If I can solve this before then then hopefully it won't take quite so long to get there.