Achy legs, (kind of long)
 

In the past few months, I've had a problem of achy legs on rides of 65 miles and up. (shorter rides, no problem) The achy would start out very slight and get worse as the miles added up. By the time I'm about 25 miles from home on the return trip, it would be bad enough where I wouldn't want to push at all and every hill and rise meant the granny gear and 4 mph. Upon reaching home, the achy was completely gone in a few minutes. Also, massaging the calves and quads during the ride helped a lot for a while but soon the achy is back no matter how easy I went.

Last week, I experimented with the seat height just out of curiosity, starting from the highest where the hips would rock while pedaling, then lowering little by little just to the point there was no more hip rocking. This comfortable position was 3/4" higher than the initial height.

After several short test rides of 30-40 miles with the new seat height, it felt great, a little more power all around, especially on hills. It also felt like the aerobic capacity got a bit higher. A definite improvement.

So, decided to go on that long 90 mile ride this weekend and was absolutely thrilled! no achy legs whatsoever for the first time, not the slightest and was able to stand and jam those hills and flats hard til I got home with energy to spare, could have gone over a century easy. (Nothing else done different except the saddle higher even same routes)

Question. What do you suppose caused that terrible achy with the lower seat height? could it be because the muscles can now "stretch" out and refresh on each stroke?

It's still unbelievable to me how 3/4" made that much difference.

Thanks for reading, Perhaps this can help other riders with similar problems.

knotty

3/4" is a HUGE change for someone who rides enough to do 90 mi. with no problems. If you were that far off in your seat height (assuming it's correct now), you should think about a professional fitting to check your other areas. Glad what you did provided the needed relief.

+1

I just started riding again 10 months ago after a 30 year layoff. When I got the new bike in 2007, it was fit to me at the LBS and I didn't have any problems whatsoever until I began putting in mileages of 65 and above.

From what I understand, after riding a while, the body changes and readjustments might be necessary as to fit but I didn't do that, guess I just got used to the initial fit and as long as it felt OK, I didn't give another thought.

Couple weeks ago, I set the seat obviously too high where the hips would rock with each stroke and then I would drop the seat a 1/4" at a time and re-test. Did this until the point where the hips didn't rock at all even at high cadences and it felt good. This new seat height was 3/4" higher than the initial LBS setting many months ago.

But now the question out of curiosity, what mechanics do you think were happening in the legs to cause the aching after prolonged riding? perhaps muscles need to fully extend to function properly? I don't know.

Thanks...knotty