Gibbo9
Guru
- Location
- Taipei City, Taiwan
Firstly as a newby it is absolutely invaluable to have a place like this with so many 'experts' happy and willing to share little nuggets of information that can make riding so much more enjoyable. I have only been riding about 2 months clocking up around 500km or so and whilst I absolutely love getting out there I have had a few issues that have taken the shine off riding a little. Most notably saddle soreness, sore feet and a lack of pace (although I am not out to set any speed records at my age). Anyway having taken the time to peruse some of the older threads I decided to try a different ride height and set up.
First of all I used a link from one of the threads to read up on ride height and bored the wife to tears last night with my measurements etc. Turns out that the seat was almost 3 inches too low, duly raised and a few laps round the block to check for comfort and not overextending and all was good.
I then checked my cleat position and float to attempt to eradicate my foot soreness (thanks to vikster for that little gem).
Finally to attempt to get more speed I invested in some new tyres. Schwalbe Duranos in the smaller size of 700x23. In all honesty I had lost all confidence in the Giant fitted SRs, absolutely no faith in them in the damp. Whether the Schwalbes will prove faster we will wait and see I am confident they will do though as they have red stripes
Anyway, for those not yet asleep, I decided to have a ride out today on a favourite route of mine which is 47km over undulating country roads. Wow what a difference!!!!!
I managed to take almost 7 minutes off my previous best at an average of almost 26km per hour as opposed to my previous best of around 23-24km per hour, the higher seat position means my legs are now far more efficient. I have also found that on the flat I am riding 2 gears higher than normal and up to 4 gears higher whilst going uphill which means I can drive much harder off the top of the hill. Couple this with the fact that I never noticed my saddle once all the way round and my foot pain was vastly decreased (a little more tinkering there I think) all means I am one happy cyclist right now.
As I said at the beginning, thanks for all the advice. I appreciate you guys must get tired of the same old questions all the time but I can honestly say it means a lot when you take time out to answer us.
Cheers
First of all I used a link from one of the threads to read up on ride height and bored the wife to tears last night with my measurements etc. Turns out that the seat was almost 3 inches too low, duly raised and a few laps round the block to check for comfort and not overextending and all was good.
I then checked my cleat position and float to attempt to eradicate my foot soreness (thanks to vikster for that little gem).
Finally to attempt to get more speed I invested in some new tyres. Schwalbe Duranos in the smaller size of 700x23. In all honesty I had lost all confidence in the Giant fitted SRs, absolutely no faith in them in the damp. Whether the Schwalbes will prove faster we will wait and see I am confident they will do though as they have red stripes
Anyway, for those not yet asleep, I decided to have a ride out today on a favourite route of mine which is 47km over undulating country roads. Wow what a difference!!!!!
I managed to take almost 7 minutes off my previous best at an average of almost 26km per hour as opposed to my previous best of around 23-24km per hour, the higher seat position means my legs are now far more efficient. I have also found that on the flat I am riding 2 gears higher than normal and up to 4 gears higher whilst going uphill which means I can drive much harder off the top of the hill. Couple this with the fact that I never noticed my saddle once all the way round and my foot pain was vastly decreased (a little more tinkering there I think) all means I am one happy cyclist right now.
As I said at the beginning, thanks for all the advice. I appreciate you guys must get tired of the same old questions all the time but I can honestly say it means a lot when you take time out to answer us.
Cheers
