Originally Posted by
shelleyspins
So to make a long story short (too late) even though I haven't had a real bike in years I spend a lot of time in saddle, have a good aerobic base, can work at threshold for a long time and since I'm not a competitive athlete I rarely work above threshold. I don't go out for rides on days that I've had lots of classes and I stay aerobic roughly 85% of the ride, the rest of the time at AT. I do carry stress in my shoulders - even before I took up cycling - and I'm in the habit of checking my posture but maybe need to do it more on the road.
My pain is in my trapezius and posterior delts, both sides but more intense on the right. I did a quick search but keep finding info regarding handlebar height. Could it be the handlebars?
Well, your position and weighting on any road bike on the road will be different than a trainer. I suspect this is part of your issue. You've obviously spent some time on indoor bicycles and your posture and muscles have developed to assist in that manner. Now you're asking them to change after they've been used to operating in a specific manner. It doesn't help that you're fit, in fact this may make things worse because the fitness of your legs and cardio system is higher than the fitness of your traps and rear delts - muscles that probably aren't used to being statically held in such positions. The pain is most likely worse on the right because you naturally lean/weight that way with your posture. Try easing into your new bicycle gently. Maybe you can even put the new bicycle on a trainer for class and see if that helps. If the fit on the new bicycle is right(as faithfully checked) an outstanding remaining cause is that the indoor trainer you were using wasn't reproducing the tertiary demands of road cycling during a work-out. So, this may be a case of comparing apples to oranges and as a result you might have to ease into outdoor road cycling a little more gently and tone down the trainer use.