New road bike and body aches

wrote:
My background: I have never ridden a road bike before. Only recently
started training for long distance (more than 10 miles) riding. I am
over 40 years of age.

My existing bike: Road Master mountain bike that I have been using
until a couple of weeks ago.

Current situation: I have signed up for a charity bike ride. The final
ride is a 180-mile ride in April spanning two days in a weekend. So, I
am training for it by riding in a club every Saturday. Figured out
that my mountain bike is slow and I needed a road bike. Others riders
were passing me even though my cadence was heigher than theirs.

Road bike: Schwinn Prelude arrives and I get it fitted. I took it to
the training ride on last Saturday. Happy with the product. I stayed
in the middle of the pack and completed a 43-mile ride in 4 hours.
Longest ride ever. The route was hilly and there was constant breeze.

Problem: Various parts of my body hurt for a couple of days.
Specifically, neck, shoulders, lower back, and pelvic area hurt more
than any other part. Could that be because my bike is not really
fitted well to suit my body? Or, could it be cause it was my first
time on a road bike?

Thank you very much for your insights and help!

1) You're old. Sort-of.
2) Messing with the fitting /can/ help. It will not alleviate the pain
totally, but can reduce it.
3) It's expensive and a hassle, but switching to a recumbent bike is
likely to *greatly* reduce the riding pain.

----

There are disadvantages to recumbents, but the riding comfort is
incomparable. For the most part, the pain you get from riding an upright
bike really doesn't happen on a recumbent--and what pain you do get on a
recumbent is much less severe.
~

DougC wrote:

There are disadvantages to recumbents, but the riding comfort is
incomparable. For the most part, the pain you get from riding an upright
bike really doesn't happen on a recumbent--and what pain you do get on a
recumbent is much less severe.
~
I agree with that 100%. I switched to recumbents 10 years ago, and
haven't regretted it at all. I remember the sore butt, numb, tingling
soreness in my upper back and neck. The only pain I have received from
recumbents was sore, over worked muscles in my legs, after 100+ miles a
day. Even that was diminished once I learned to downshift and spin the
crank, instead of riding a higher gear and having to pump more torque
into it.
96 Linear LWB, USS
99 Vision 40 SWB, OSS