Back pain after long distance riding

[Tallow]

Hello All,

I was wondering if any of you cycling experts could offer some advice: I did a 100km ride at the weekend, which was a first for me. Consequently, my back is in quite a lot of pain.
Beyond the back (and saddle) pain after the event, I felt fine. I'm exercise regularly so am in pretty reasonable shape and don't normally have back pain so I don't think it's just tired muscles (and even if it was that should have worn off by now).

I'm wondering if this is due to the setup of the bike: I had borrowed it as this was my first event, and was obviously not used to it. Does anyone have any suggestions of things I could try to prevent this in the future?

Much obliged!

[HundredthIdiot]

I suffer from cycling-induced back pain. I've had a lot of physio this year and have it under control, but never quite feel I can declare victory.

As far as setup is concerned, I find that saddle too high = hurty back, saddle too low = hurty knees. Take your pick!

If it's just this one ride on a different bike to what you're used to then I wouldn't worry about it. Just give it a week to calm down and do some stretching of the hamstrings and lower back, and maybe some swimming or running to loosen things up.

If it continues, work with a physio to properly diagnose and fix it.

[rhinochopig]

See my post here for some tips on set-up and back pain.

http://www.pistonheads.com/xforums/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[Tallow]

Cheers guys, much appreciated. It's a nice bike so ideally I'd like to buy it so I can do some more - as long as it doesn't continue trying to kill me!

I'd suspected the seat might be a little high to be honest - my legs are fairly short for my height, so maybe I need to have a further look at this. An interesting point ref cadence too... I'd never really considered that.

[peterr96]

Tallow said:

Cheers guys, much appreciated. It's a nice bike so ideally I'd like to buy it so I can do some more - as long as it doesn't continue trying to kill me!

I'd suspected the seat might be a little high to be honest - my legs are fairly short for my height, so maybe I need to have a further look at this. An interesting point ref cadence too... I'd never really considered that.

If your legs are short for your height that implies a longer torso. That being the case the chances are that the top tube length is short which would I suspect throw you into very strange position. You can make adjustments to that by changing stem length but that does fundamentally change the way that a bike handles and is not a route that I would use to make a frame that is the wrong size fit. If you are not an average shape, an average frame will more than likely not fit.

Sounds suspiciously to me as if you would do well to consider a larger sloping frame that would have a longer effective top tube and ride with a slightly lower saddle height.
Other than making sure the bike fits, also consider routinely doing some core exercises. That helped me.
Before committing to buy anything I'd go and discuss your issues with a few local bike shops and get them to measure you properly. They can throw those numbers into a computer that will enable them to guide you towards the right shape/size frame.