I have a bunch of bikes in my garage, but one of my favorites is a pedestrian single speed from Trek. The lowly Trek Soho S. It's an inexpensive bike, but it's very light, especially for the price. Plus, the geometry is spot on.
Unfortunately, it's mostly aluminum, and whenever I ride it for very long I feel like I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Sore shoulders, aches in my forearms, it just makes me feel terrible.
So in this thread, I'll show some things I'm doing to fix that.
IMHO, the reason that road bikes are so uncomfortable (and recumbents are so comfy) is because
road bikes turn the rider of the bike into a shock absorber. Basically the vibrations from the road travel up from the road, through the front wheel, up the fork, through the handlebars, up the riders arms, and terminate in the upper body of the rider. [b]IMHO, this is one of the reasons that road bikes have a reputation for being uncomfortable, particularly aluminum road bikes.