The pedals are not the best, so swapping them was a good move. However, I persevered with the toe clips for about 600 miles, and then moved to clipless pedals, and I'm just about, after about 500 miles, starting to feel comfortable being locked onto the bike. However, from the first ride, I benefited from the clipless pedals, reducing my time on a measured route by about 5%.Riding position was ok, had clips on the pedals which i've never used and I felt they restricted me - so they were changed today. I felt I was stretching a bit to the handle bars, I've a friend who reckons he can save me a centimetre of stretching by adjusting the bars someway. It has a future, it'll will just take a bit of getting use to!
The arse was sore too, the racing seats are less forgiving than the armchair I have on my hybrid.
The seat you will get used to, and I would say it'll only be another ride or two if you are doing 25 miles at a time. Once your bum and your saddle are acquainted, you should be comfortable riding on it all day. I've swapped the saddle on my Secteur to an even harder one now, and I love it.
Your friend is probably looking at flipping the stem. I did that to mine, a short and simple operation which brought the bars up and back by, at a guess, a couple of centimetres, a worthwhile gain if you are finding it a bit of a stretch.
That's a first ride report, and it will be a shock to the body to move to a bike with drops, the things are lighter and faster but that also means they are not as plush. That doesn't make them uncomfortable, just that you need to allow some time to get used to the differences.
By "racers", I'll assume (or is that ass-u-me
) that you mean bikes with dropped bars. Being sweepingly generalistic, dropped bars are more efficient because they are, generally, narrower and lower and the rest of the bike is likely to be lighter and higher spec. Most flat barred bikes I see are in the £300-£500 price range, whereas most with drops are £750+, the better kit does make for faster, smoother and more efficient riding. The riding position itself is also more efficient, the head is lower for better aerodynamics, the bars are narrower also for aero, the top tube is shorter to use the core muscles better... most of these features can be found on bikes with flat bars, but they usually aren't.
It is also possible (it is my personal experience) that people ride slower on bikes with flat bars because that is the sort of riding they are choosing to do. I tend to push harder when I'm on a bike with drops, maybe it is the increased efficiency, maybe I have made the choice of bike because I want to go somewhere faster, maybe I am out to push myself a bit more when I ride a bike with drops, maybe it's entirely psychological. Whatever the cause, my average speed on the flat-barred road bike is around 14mph, whereas it is usually over 16mph on the Secteur.
