Bike rides and pain.

[pyrric]

unsound and I went on a really nice bike ride today, from our place out to Ocean Beach and back again, mostly through Golden Gate Park. In total, we rode eleven miles, on either flat or gently-rolling-upwards hills. I've been pretty comfortably riding back and forth to work, about two miles each way, for a week and a half or so, so this wasn't a hugely

Comments

[cris]

being out of shape for bike riding should hit you in your hips, legs, and butt. Neck, shoulder and upper back pain usually means bad fit or posture. It's most likely that the reason why you don't feel this when you're doing your two mile commute to work is that it's too short of a distance for symptoms or injury to manifest. Pedaling with poor posture for an hour or more will certainly bring that sort of issue to the fore.

As in many topics Sheldon Brown's website provides some worthwhile, basic advice on diagnosing bike-related pain and improving your posture. A thing to consider would be your reach from the saddle to the handlebars -- when you sit on your bike, can you reach the handlebars easily enough while keeping your elbows bent, or do you need to stretch forward to grasp them? If you have to stretch out, then that's likely causing you to lock your arms and transmit all of the road shock into your neck and upper back.

[aphorisic]

Unrelated question for one with knowledge of bicycles:

When I got my bike, I got talked into wheel and seat locks. Now, of course, I can't find the key for either. How on earth do I go about getting these things off/replaced?

[cris]

I assume by wheel lock, you mean an O-lock like what they've got on a Dutch or Japanese bike or are you talking about a conventional U-lock? And for a seat lock, I assume you're talking about a seat leash, and not, say, a a locking seat collarI also assume that both of these are currently locked and your question is about how to open them back up and not just get them uninstalled

[dxmachina]

I was going to send you to Sheldon Brown's site, too. As cris said, being out of shape can give you pain in the lower body, not usually the upper.