Originally Posted by
phughes
When you are slightly leaned forward, you take the weight off your rear, and the bumps do not jolt your spine. It also takes pressure off your lower back. If your bike is set up correctly, the seat setback is correct for you, you should be balanced on the bike, with little to no weight on your hands, which also takes weight and pressure off your arms and shoulders. IN other words, you can ride many mile in a day without pain or injury. When you sit completely upright, you will need a very large, comfortable seat. ...
As long as your bars are at the same level, or slightly above the seat level, you will be able to look around and enjoy the sights just fine.
I am 90 percent in agreement. The 10 percent that I am not, I have some downward pressure on my hands. Not a significant amount, but much more than "little to no weight on your hands".
It gets complicated, if I am pedaling hard, I have a lot of downward pressure on the pedal spindle that is in front of the bottom bracket spindle (up to 175mm in front of the bottom bracket spindle), and much less downward pressure on the rear pedal. Thus, I am taking weigh off of my other contact points, hands and bum. But if coasting the foot pressure is centered over the bottom bracket spindle and that foot pressure is reduced compared to when pedaling hard.
That also means that hand pressure varies with how hard I am pedaling. And varies with different hand positions, hoods or drops or bar tops, different positions change how much forward lean I have. Often when coasting I sit more upright with my hands on the bar tops, but if pushing hard into the wind I am leaning forward more with hands on the drops. My point is that downward hand pressure varies a lot depending on what I am doing with my feet and how far forward I am leaning.
I am not trying to be argumentative, I said I was 90 percent in agreement. Only the hand pressure is where we are not in agreement.
That said, if I am the anomaly here, not concerned about that as I have it setup where it works well for me for long days.
The photo that I posted that someone put a yellow line through my head, I think I was coasting during the photo, as my hands were on the bar tops, not the hoods or drops.