In general, bumping old threads is a bad idea IMO.

But this thread is SO HELPFUL, it’s fine to bump.

Carry on.

Hi folks.

In general I try to avoid bumping old threads, but this one seems timeless enough to me that I decided to go ahead and contribute a new idea. Or perhaps a new way to describe the ideas already mentioned in the older posts? Anyway, here goes.

I was out on a ride today and cruising along on the bike path, when I saw a middle aged guy bending over to pick up his dog. It was a fairly large dog, and he was struggling to lift it into the back of his SUV. The way he picked up the dog was the way you aren't supposed to, by bending with his back instead of from his hip joints and using his legs. He struggled to lift the dog but managed to get it into the car, then he was rubbing his lower back as he closed the lift gate and walked around and got into the driver's seat.

As I continued on, I thought about my own struggles with occasional back problems in the past and the way I've come up with to try to avoid them in the future. What I try to do is to bend from my hips, rather than by rounding my back. Works like a charm for me for preventing back problems. Anyway, since I was biking at the time, a lightbulb went off in my head, and it occurred to me that that idea also relates to cycling and to this thread.

Here's what I mean. When you lift something by bending your back, you feel tons of strain in your back, even if you try to assist with your legs. If you instead bendfrom your hip joints, you activate your legs and glutes much more. It's almost like your back and torso become weightless, at least in comparison to how heavy they feel when bending from your back.

For me, the idea from this thread of riding with the pelvis rotated forward is exactly like that. When I try to ride with a bent back and a vertical pelvis, it feels like my head and torso weigh a ton, my back hurts, and that leads to carrying a lot of weight on my hands.

On the other hand, when I tilt my pelvis forward (or in other words, bend from my hip joints), it feels like the weight of my head and torso are being carried by my hamstrings and glutes, and my back feels relaxed and weightless.

To see what I mean, try this experiment. Stand up, feet about shoulder width apart, and slightly flex your knees. Now, try bending forward, but do it by bending or rounding your back in the lumbar area. Also, reach your arms out in front of you, in a typical cycling position. Feel all that strain in your lower back?

Now, repeat the process, but instead of bending forward by rounding your lower back, do it by bending from your hip joints. This will also feel like you are sticking your butt out a lot more than in the first experiment. Notice that the only way to do this is to rotate your pelvis forward, as we've discussed in this thread? Also, notice how much lighter your upper body feels, and how its weight is being carried by your hamstrings and glutes, rather than by your back?

In other words, if the idea of trying to ride with your pelvis tilted forward is confusing for you, then think of it as riding by bending forward from your hip joints while sticking your butt out, rather than by bending your lower back. Either way results in the same thing, using the power of your legs and hips rather than putting strain on your back.

Anyway, sorry for bumping an old thread, but I hope this helps someone. Also, this thread is old enough now that tons of new riders may not have even seen it, so I thought some of them might benefit. Hope this helps more folks enjoy riding pain-free. Enjoy!

Holy crap, is this a blast from the past or what. Been 10+ years and I was just starting biking when this thread came around.

After 10 years of riding (some years long months off the bike though) and a recent completion of RAGBRAI, I would just add that don't underestimate the importance of core strength and the correct adjustment of saddle height so that when each pedal is at the lowest position, you don't have to rock your body to reach it. I've never had any back pain from riding and it's probably a combination of core strength (I consistently go to the gym) and the rotated pelvis method that I do naturally because of the "aero" low placement of my handlebars.

By the way, based on my recent experience, if you want to improve fitness on the bike/decrease chance of injury, a focused exercise at least 3 times a week is necessary. Most of my biking experience had been about 2 rides a week, with most of the volume coming from being a weekend warrior (group rides). In my most recent training, I did all my rides solo and had an even effort 3-4 times a week for about 2 months. The amount of improvement in my speed and endurance was mind blowing, even though I'm older now. I wish I didn't have a busy work schedule, so alas such a regiment will be off and on when I'm training for competitions. But it was revealing to me nevertheless. When you have 3 or more rides of consistent effort throughout the week, each one seems to build fitness on top of the next one. But when it's once or twice a week, the difference is large because fitness either stays flat or builds at a too slow of a rate to make much of a difference. When I was riding RAGBRAI and going hard every day, despite the significant fatigue, I ended up being faster almost every day of that event as well, which I wasn't expecting.

Or imagining you still have a tail, and sticking it out with a lot of joy and excitement :)

This thread should be a sticky

Agreed. It's one of my most-linked-to threads on BF.

This is OT, but I'll reply anyway. When I was working, I kept my road bike on my trainer (actually resistance rollers). As soon as I could after work, I was on the bike. Half hour, hour, whatever, but on the bike. Every weekday. It doesn't take long to get a good workout. You can go easy, go moderate, go half moderate, half hard, do intervals, pedaling drills, everything you can't really do outdoors what with stop lights and signs, inconvenient hills, etc. Three days of no training is as long as one can go without losing fitness. I didn't use any devices other than a heart rate monitor. IOW you're right about frequency and consistency.

I hate to rebump this, but I just went to the LBS to throw a leg over what might be my first race-geo purchase, and I was almost entirely sure the stack would be too low and the reach would be too long, so I went in with all sorts of questions about cockpit adjustability, thinking I would need to make all the changes I normally make to get things so upright that even Grant Petersen might say "too much."

Owner looks at me, looks at my short legs (short femurs, specifically), grabs a size 55 Bianci Sprint off the rack, adjusts the seatpost by eye, hands it to me and says "just give it a go." It just fit. I was slightly more stretched out with massively less stack, and I felt so much more comfortable and "in" my bike. I also felt MORE comfortable in the drops because my weight was lower and better centered, whereas before, I always figured the secret to the drops was raising the bars to the point where the drops were basically the height of the flats. Magic moment.

You shoveled all that dirt just to let the board know about a NBD?