Due to having young children, I spend a lot of time on a trainer vs the road. Around this time of year, it's nearly 50/50. After never feeling 100% confident with fitting over the course of 3 years, I've determined that I want one fit for the stationary trainer, and one for actual road riding.

On the road, I can handle a more aggressive setup... lower bars, bit more reach, a touch less setback. Overall I feel stable, balanced, and no pain/discomfort. Everything seems dead on for my style/speed of riding. On the trainer... yikes. With the same setup, I feel like like there's tons of weight on my hands, my neck/back is strained (reach too far?) and if I listened and adjusted to my body, I'd be running the setup of a beach cruiser.

What I don't get is... WHY??? Is this normal? Any fitting process I've ever seen is based on observing/measuring/jedi magic while the rider is on the bike on a trainer. It took me over 2 years before finding that just doesn't work for me. In fact, I've developed a "don't change the fit based on the feel of the trainer" policy after screwing it up several times. I only change if I feel one is needed after several long road rides.

For now, I'm using a commuter - rigid 29er with surly open bars - as my dedicated trainer bike. I really wish I could figure out the road bike problem though.