My shoulder improved enough for me to get out for a 4 mile ride this morning and my usual 12 mile ride this afternoon. I would say the jury is still out on the saddle height change. Not distinctly better or worse. I think tomorrow I'll try moving it back 1 cm and tilting the nose up slightly. That will about put me at the end of my ranges on the saddle without getting a setback seat post.
On the stem question, I noted today and recall it from the past as well, that I ride with my hands about an inch and a half behind the hoods rather than on them. That seems to be my most comfortable position. I would say it was breaking down about 30% hoods, 50% behind the hoods and 20% on the tops. I got a couple of stems earlier this week to try out. One is a Sunshine alloy with a 50 mm reach and the other is a steel mtn bike type. My current Technomic is a 100 mm reach.
The Sunshine can be extended a bit taller than my Technomic. The drawing below is a very rough comparison of the relative bar positions with these two and my current bar with all of them at the max extension line.
Do you think one of these will give me a bar position I prefer? i need to get some new bar tape on hand before I play with them. And on the subject of bar tape and fitting of a different sort, do you think tape the color of my water bottle would look good with this frame color? Semi-serious question.
Thanks,
Michael