It's Tuesday now. Last Saturday I attempted to ride for the first time after having my bike re-fitted by Miles Ahead. I took off well before sunrise hoping to get in 130m. It was in the 30's so I was wearing thick tights and 4 or 5 layers on top, and it was so cold I had to wear my lobster claw gloves.
The good news is that my neuropathy didn't get worse. It's still here just a little bit, but the ride didn't make it any worse. And yes, the refit did take pressure off of my hands, and the overkill tape job isolated my hands from all but the worst of the bumps.
The bad news: 1st, I only completed 46m. It was cold, cold, cold, & sometimes wet. I decided in Vail NOT to turn off into the desert and instead to take Mary Ann Cleveland back towards Tucson. Good choice, as it rained off & on all day & never broke 45 degrees. Cold! In just 45m, my new position in the saddle managed to give me chaffing on my ABC like I haven't had in years & years. 3 days later it's still painful to shower. I was wearing thick tights, but I could feel that my position on the saddle was digging in. Then on late Sunday I developed mild-moderate tendonitis in both wrists. Was it caused by the ride or something I did on Sunday? I did spend a lot more time on the tops, and the diameters of the bar & hoods are much greater with all the padding. Could that be it? Was I holding myself up with my wrists in some funky position? The gloves?
So...I've swapped the seatpost for the setback & put the saddle close to the previous fore-aft position. I also brought the nose way down from where it was. The Miles Ahead position, when measured with a level from the highest point of the rear to the highest point of the nose, the level's bubble was fully & completely nose up! So with the Thompson microset I adjusted it to perfectly level, which may appear to be nose down due to the funky shape of the saddle. Perhaps later today, if it ever warms up enough, I'll ride around the neighborhood & try to re-fit the bike to a better position...Miles Ahead gave me some ideas, but clearly they were not on target. So for now it's back to the old ways of riding, tweaking, & riding some more.
Endurance cycling is not just about physical endurance. There are many, many factors, and one of them is problem solving. Sometimes that's no small feat. Fitting a bicycle, especially for distances of >100m, is as much art as it is science.
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