Originally Posted by Phamilton

Sorry in advance for this extremely long post.

A week or two ago, I posted over in Commuting forum about the struggles I was having with headwinds, mostly on the return leg of my 12 mi each way commute. My family and I are now on week 11 or 12 of being car free, with no prior experience, and we were not in great physical shape to start so it has been very challenging but also very rewarding. Some very helpful members over there in Commuting happily provided me with advice and encouragement, and since then I've made some adjustments to my approach and technique and riding into headwinds has become noticeably much easier.

I also have been trying to fine tune the overall fit of my bike (an 80's Raleigh road bike) to provide me with the most efficient position and also maximize my comfort for the trip, which averages out to about an hour each way.

For context, I am 6' tall, long torso, and the Raleigh is a 58cm frame (I think it might be called "square"
when the top tube and seat tube are the same length) and the frame and hardware seem to fit me fine now (after swapping handlebars, stems, and saddles to my satisfaction, which only took me about 3 years).

I was reading up on how to find the right position for my feet on the pedals (KOPS) and realized that I had my feet way too far forward and was effectively pedaling with mostly my toes - and was starting to have cramps in my calves and my feet were starting to fall asleep the last few miles of my commute either way.

I don't use any sort of foot retention, so adjusting the position was mostly just paying attention to where my feet were sitting on the pedals relative to my knees and making notes of how my shoes looked in relation to the pedals.

Once I felt like I had my feet mostly dialed in, I noticed my hips were rocking side to side pretty wildly during all but the slowest pedaling, so I lowered my saddle. And then lowered it some more. And then lowered the nose a little. And slid it forward. And then lowered the height some more. By the time I was done, the saddle was a good 3/4" or close to 20mm lower, forward by roughly the same amount, and the nose tilted several degrees lower.

Since then I've only made minuscule adjustments, 1 or 2mm this way or that or a couple degrees tilt, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I eliminated all sources of discomfort related to the fit of my bike. Not only that, but it seems like I have cut 15 minutes from my commute when there's no wind or a tailwind, and closer to 30 minutes when I have a considerable headwind to contend with (strong headwind equals about a 75 minute ride, now I seem to be doing it in about 45-50).

Understanding that there are countless other variables in play like how much sleep I got the night before, what I ate (if anything) for breakfast, whether I had coffee, is it raining, etc., has anyone had or does anybody know of anyone who has had a similar experience - or perhaps I should rephrase: if one's saddle height, front to back position, and foot position on the pedals are out of whack by 20mm each (or more), is it possible (or likely) that addressing those issues will come with such a remarkable increase in performance and comfort?

To me, it seems like a big part of what has determined my performance on long rides so far has been my own aversion to pain - I'll sit or pedal one way and it hurts so I won't "push it". Since I have made those adjustments, it's really been more of a matter of warming up, finding the pace my body more or less wants to work, and really small adjustments to my posture, grip, etc. I have about 75-100 miles on the adjustments and don't get anything but the usual squawks from my 36 year old body of a non-athlete.

Joseph