As a fellow back pain sufferer I would first suggest obtaining a properly sized bicycle and couple that with a stretching and strengthing program. The small amount of stretching that I performed in the past helped tremendously in lower back comfort, and more recently my strenghtening program is helping as well. Additionally, my first was a 56 road bike, but I experienced a great increase in comfort when moving to a 54 tri bike and more recently to a 54 road bike.
Even though I am setup lower in the front on the tri bike, it is actually more comfortable for me when setup in the FIST position, due to I believe, the steeper seat tube, thus enabling a more obtuse or greater hip angle.
I can't say enough about the comfort of my aluminum P2SL, so I am sure the P2C would be great as well. But I really shouldn't comment on that or any of the others due to lack of experience.
What I can point out, as a few other did, are a few bike setup techniques that have helped me tremendously and may help you as well.
First: Saddle positioning.
- Move it as far forward as possible. This will have a hip angle increasing effect.
Second: Short cranks.
- I have 165's on my road as well as tri bike, but you can find some custom even shorter (all the way to 140's, I believe) from sites such as
www.harriscyclery.com . This may be worth looking into.. Testing, I believe, actually shows no appreciable loss of power with respect to crank length, and again benefits may be found in comfort and potentially aerodynamics by allowing more time on the aerobars.
What this accomplishes is a raising of the saddle (the distance at the bottom of the pedal stroke to the top of saddle is decreased) as well as lowering the foot (due to the shorter crank length) at the top of the pedal stroke (this in effect increases the hip angle as well).
The combination of these two effects is significant.
Below is a quick Paint screenshot to try to graphically capture and get across the comprehensive idea. Notice the difference in angles between the red line and the blue. This seemingly small difference proves actually quite significant for myself with respect to back pain.
Additionally with all of the above suggestions, I would add that a few extra spacers and possibly an upturned stem may help out as well. Just take a look at Chris Lieto's stack (arm pad height) from this year in Kona (had one of the fastest, if not fastest- can't remember- bike splits in the field...)
Good luck- I think your back will be better off with consistent exersion.
Thank you.
Regards,
goals, personal:
- under same username post st rr of Kona m80-84ag mop, tail end of the dopers finish
- shoot age from tips on par 72
- beat SuperDave in one-on-one
all within single wk- Viva Chopin, Fryderyk; Faulk, Peter; Helmsley, Sherman; Palillo, Ron; Rogers, Fred McFeely; Sanford, John Elroy; Snuka, Jimmy- and the water bottle isn't half fuller on the other side