Alright, I did a short 45 minute cadence drill ride today with the new stem. Some thoughts
- I did not realize how much stiffer stems could get. This Syntace Force F109 stem is AWESOME. Don't feel any flex anymore when I'm on the bars, though I was doing mostly low power, high cadence biking today. I am interested to see how it does with climbing.
- I definitely feel more comfortable with the 110mm stem, zero stress on my shoulder/neck. The stem was a bit shorter in height than the Ritchey 4-axis, and I had to use a spacer to push the handle bars up ~5mm is my guess.
- I felt a lot more pressure on my hands, but I think this was because I was doing high cadence drills which was just extra stress on my body
- I could never really get a comfortable position on the saddle, but again I think this was related to the cadence drills.
- My butt wasn't feeling great. But again, cadence drills forced me to keep moving my pelvis around. I am wondering if maybe I should consider that I just don't like saddles with so little padding? I was wearing my shorts with thinner padding, but I figured I should last at least 15-20 minutes before starting to feel pain/hot spots. I don't believe it's a saddle angle issue as it is probably -1 to 0 degrees right now, and I can't see myself going any more negative. How do you decide when a saddle just doesn't work for you? I am considering trying out ISM's saddle demo program.
My Praxis cranks should come tomorrow if USPS is on time, and I'll try it all on a more rigorous ride this weekend.