I had been commuting on a minivelo, but I hit the limits of distance, so I recently switched to a road bike.
I did not notice during the brief fitting when I bought the bike, but using it for real, side effects gradually began to appear in my body.
I am 172cm tall and ride size XS. I do not know my inseam.
I decided to solve them one by one.
1. Saddle pain
It was painful even on the minivelo, and sure enough my backside was on fire.
Fortunately I was able to borrow several saddles free of charge and tried them out.
The conclusion is that I confirmed my sit bone width is about 11cm, and I found that the Trek 3D saddle in 135mm fits me remarkably well.
There may be soreness from body weight, but the agonizing saddle pain of before has disappeared.
This one is settled now.
2. Knee pain
Is it called the hollow of the knee? Behind the knee. The back of the joint.
That area began to hurt after a few weeks. After endless conversations with GPT and Gemini, I decided to lower the saddle.
But in the fitting video my position looked like the saddle was juuust a bit high, though it did not look awkward.
Just as I was about to lower the saddle, I heard a mechanic's advice that fitting clipless pedals has the effect of lowering the saddle at least slightly, and embarrassingly only then did I install cleats. Absurdly, this too got solved that way.
3. Geometry
Commuting a fairly long distance, the bent-over position was not merely uncomfortable but downright painful for me, riding a road bike for the first time.
The torment of a low, distant handlebar.
With the suspicion that I had chosen the wrong size, I began looking into the geometry of other models.
Trek, Cannondale, Scott, Giant, Cervelo, Specialized, BMC, Pinarello and so on.
I learned that stack, reach and seatpost angle are the main factors, and ended up researching them all.
Drawing it out in CAD, I came to see that even with a short reach, a smaller seatpost angle changes the actual distance again.
I checked the stack specification with particular focus.
Among aero bikes, only the Trek Madone has a stack about 17mm higher, and I confirmed that the other models are little different from the Reacto 4000, with some even lower. In exchange the reach is a little shorter and the seatpost angle a little smaller.
That led me to weigh switching to either an endurance bike or the 8th-generation Madone.
But looking at myself in the video, my bent posture did not look much different from the other riders I see on the bike path.
I concluded that "this is because I have not adapted"....
and withdrew the plan to switch bikes. In that case, let us raise the handlebar height.
Sadly, all the spacers are already used, so they say it cannot be raised any further.
Despite the mechanic's objection, I loosened the stem and lifted the handlebar angle just slightly.
And then I set off for work the following week.
And what do you know? That uncomfortable feeling from last week largely vanished. I muttered to myself while riding, "That's it!! That's it!!!"
If anything, when picking up speed I now lower my upper body further and even take an aero position.
That is something I could not do last week.
The mechanic advised that raising the handlebar angle puts the wrist and palm structure at a disadvantage in the aero position, but
for now I will let my body adapt and think about it after that ^^
Now the Reacto 4000 looks different to me. Like a bike made just for me?
I should stay with it for a long time.
The handlebar angle in the photo is before the adjustment ^^
Thank you for reading this long post ^^
