6/18/09 McAllister Park

I tried out a new (for me) stem this evening.  I've been battling with back aches for years, and for the past few months I've been trying to get them worked out.  Exercise has gotten the road riding taken care of, but I still get aches while riding my mountain bike.  I changed to a non-offset seatpost to move my seat forward, and the stem I tried today is shorter.  This should bring me more upright and make me less bent over.  Unfortunately, it didn't really make any difference.  I still hurt by the middle of the ride.

I measured my mountain bike and compared it to my road bike.  Seat height is about the same on both of them, and with the new stem the distance from seat to handlebars, and the height of the seat above the handlebars, are both about the same.  I'm running out of differences between the bikes to blame it on.

I know that it's possible that riding off-road just beats my back into submission, but I'm not ready to draw that conclusion yet.  If I keep investigating possible causes, the worst thing that will happen is that I find nothing and I just learn to live with the pain.  Anything I discover in the process can only help.  Therefore, there's no reason to stop trying new things until I've really exhausted all options.

The last real differences I see between the bikes is that the moutain bike handlebars are much wider, and the mountain bike cranks are a bit longer (172.5 vs. 175).  Also, I ride with bar ends on the mountain bike.

Things left to try:

• shorter cranks
• ride without the bar ends
• narrower bars
  
• vary the ride (I always do the same course) and see if the aches happen at the same places, or just at the same times in the ride.  This way maybe I could isolate what type of riding does it and work from there.
• see if the physical therapist has any other exercise suggestions
  
• try another bike and see if that makes a difference. Several of the local shops rent bikes, so it wouldn't be that hard to do.