Amazingly enough I actually made it out on my bike finally yesterday. It was enough to show me that Ill probably be in trouble next Friday. I averaged about 16 mph and did about 30 miles. Im really looking into grabbing a new saddle. I know discomfort is normal but Im thinking that its not normal to feel like you’ve spent a night in prison after so short of a ride. On the flats I did a pretty good average of about 20 mph so it looks like the stationary bike and running did help a bit. I did however faltar on the hills burning my legs out fairly quickly. Im hoping thats just because I had done 18 miles on the stationary bike Wednesday and 4 mile runs on Thursday and Friday leading up to yesterday.

I did fiddle with my saddle this morning to make sure that its setup correctly to see if that helps. I found that the correct setup from everything i read is that the leg should be bent about 30% at the bottom of the pedal stroke, six o’clock when pedaling. This ensures the proper seat height. To determine the correct fore/aft positioning of the saddle put your foot into the three o’clock position on the pedals. The small bump behind your kneecap, center of knee, should be dead center of the pedal spindle/axle. The saddle should be completely level or slightly tilted downward.

We’ll see if that helps but im heading out to the bike shop today to look at a new saddle and hopefully find one i like to swtich out. I’ve heard its a bad idea to change up equipment before a big ride but i’ll be able to get in two rounds in the saddle before the 24 Hours of Booty so hope that will be enough to get used to it and setup correctly.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 23rd, 2006 at 9:22 am and is filed under Cycling, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.