I've found for myself and neck issues it's not exclusively about being upright, it's about minimizing my body's instinct to pull on the bars. Even when upright if my bars are too wide or high I find myself pulling to leverage which ends up making my lower back and neck sore. My most successful setups allow a Graeme Obree type position where I can lean forward, hinging at the hip and engaging my core to leverage, without the use of my upper body except for stability. Swept back bars have been a game changer as it allows a for and aft adjustment and allowing me to keep my upper body relaxed no matter how upright or forward I want to ride.
On Tuesday, June 2, 2026 at 8:09:09 AM UTC-7 [email protected] wrote: > I’ve found that getting your saddle sufficiently behind the bottom > bracket, so that there’s a minimally sufficient bend between hips and > torso, takes strain off the shoulders + arms + hands, is more comfortable > for the neck, and perhaps takes pressure off the lower back too. The odd > thing is that this seems to help relax the neck as well as shoulders, etc. > This despite the fact that my bars are, for my road bikes, 3-4 cm below > saddle nose, and on the dirt road bike, ~1 cm below ditto. > > I haven’t worked out the mechanics of why this is so, but empirical > evidence proves it sufficiently for my own case. > > But bar above or below saddle: I think that the principle works in either > case. > > > > On Mon, Jun 1, 2026 at 6:39 PM stephen cowdrey <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hey bunchers >> I find that the most upright with no pressure on hands puts a lot of >> strain on the lower back… what’s the balance because I also suffer with bad >> neck pain. >> >> Stephen Cowdrey >> Tallahassee Fl. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/77c79692-e102-4e9d-9d5e-204ce6d912a2n%40googlegroups.com.
