Hello everyone, I would welcome some observations.
I'm a writer, which is manual work on a keyboard. I sit fourteen hours a day. I'm therefore acutely conscious of wrist and back ergonomics. My bike is custom-designed to maximize my comfort. Here are some observations, from what I learned, gradually, in building up three bikes ever more successfully, until now I have no need or desire to change:
1. Forget reducing the weight of the bike. That's racing bicyclist nonsense. The pound or two you save in the total scheme of bike plus rider will be around one per cent, worthless.
2. Start by deciding to sit more upright. Move the saddle back as far as you can to get a more relaxed virtual seat tube angle. Now move the handle bars up and back. This requires a steering tube extender and the shortest stem you can find, or, better still, a short stem with a steep rise or an adjustable angle to give you even more height. North Road bars will give you even more height. You want to move the hands away from the flat bar position past 45 degrees angled from there, and North Road bars will also move your hands back so your forearms lie flatter (elbows pointing to the road, as someone else has already said). You won't be able to pedal as powerfully or ride as fast as you did before, but if the choice before you is giving up cycling altogether or riding more appropriately to your age and condition... (Not meaning to be rude, but some of us are there or approaching that stage.)
3. Go for deep comfort by getting the right parts. First of all, forget hydro-mechanical suspensions. They either don't work except on very rough roads, or they only appear to work, still letting through microvibrations, which is what really kills your wrists and your coccyx. Good ones also cost a fortune. The suspension that works for wrist and hands and backs is old-fashioned low pressure balloon tyres. Of these the best is the Schwalbe Big Apple, and you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that the Light folding version is lighter than the tyres you have now, and equally puncture-proof. There is also a racing weight tube to go in them, Schwalbe Type 19A. I use them on rough lanes in the South of Ireland and have nearly 5000km on my first set without signs of wear, and I've never had a flat. The Big Apples are also powerful roadholders. The Big Apples at the lowest inflation your rims can handle will keep microvibrations from reaching your wrists and your backside. Next, your more upright position requires a Brooks leather saddle considerably wider than the one you sit on now,preferably sprung. I like the B73, which has coil spring front and back.
4. You need ergonomic grips of some kind. I use the edge-on leather ring Brooks grips. I cycle in dress gloves, zero padding. My wrists have stopped hurting at last from the better angle of the north road bars and the small amount of give in the Brooks grips, but probably more from the fact that the Big Apples, the steel frame and the Brooks grips between them deal very effectively with the microvibrations. At the other end of the bike, my bike hasn't sent me to the physio with back pains for ten years now because the Big Apples, the springs of the Brooks saddle and the hammock shape of its leather keep the vibrations out there as well.
5. You might think that all this slows me down. Not so. On my last theoretically fast bike I was slow because I was out of puff a lot as I was too often in pain to ride it much; I hated it. Two intermediate bikes were more comfortable but I hadn't gone the full hog yet and the hard Marathon Plus tyres on them drove too much of the road's inequalities through the suspension into my wrists and backside to put me quite at ease. It was only when I went over to the Big Apple paradigm that I felt so much at ease, and started really liking riding so much, that I was soon fit(ter) and started picking up speed. Those Big Apples are also awesome at speed on the fastest downhills, very secure. Don't let their beach cruiser origins put you off: they're seriously controlled tyres for serious speed freaks. In town I ride off curbs without hesitation, which was never a pleasant option with my bikes with suspended forks.
Hope this helps.
Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLING.htmlPS My Brooks B73 saddle and leather- ring grips are from SJS, which was the only place I could find both in stock in the honey tone I wanted.
