Originally Posted by
awsimons
I am 32 years old, 5'10" and ride a 58cm (horizontal top tube) road bike. I picked up riding again in May after a several year hiatus. I put an 8 cm stem (from an 11 cm) on this bike several months ago after I realized how far I was having to reach to get to the hoods.
A week ago, I woke up with a horrible pain in my shoulder/back of my neck. I really couldn't rotate my head without significant pain. It got better as the day went on, but I still went to my doctor who sent me to a physical therapist. That has been helping and the PT has been talking to me about exercises to do and my posture, etc.
I noticed on my ride home, today, that I was riding with my shoulders in a shrugged position and now I am wondering if this could be a problem. Is it normal to ride this way? I have a feeling my bike frame/stem is still too big. Could this be causing some of my shoulder problems?
Thanks!
Alan
I don't know if you ride on a bike with dropped bars or a more upright style. With upright bars, many people end up in a slouch just because it isn't easy to maintain an open, upright posture for a significant time. With a dropped bar bike, rounding and scrunching is a sign of a better fitting needed, just speaking generally. It can be related to too little reach, a poor handlebar to saddle height relationship, handlebar width (going narrower helped me a lot on one of my bikes), and fore-aft weight distribution. Not a simple situation!
But overall, I don't think you need to pull your bars in closer to your saddle, probably the opposite. The 11 could have been too long, and the 8 could be too short. A 3 cm jump is pretty big. Can you try a 9 cm at a reasonable price, or borrow one from a bud?
Have you checked your saddle height, just to start with the most basic? I prefer to measure the cycling inseam, aka pubic bone height (PBH), multiply by 0.883, and set your saddle at that height rather precisely, measuring from the center of the BB to the top of the saddle. From there there are several common adjustment rules, then we move on to fore/aft knee placement. I don't like to think too much about reach to bars or stem length until the saddle basics are confirmed, but I do think it's worthwhile to try a 9. I also like to do these measurements and figurings in millimeters, since I have found that very small adjustments can make a big difference.