Ok so looked at those videos as well as one from GCN " How To Find The Perfect Saddle Height On Your Bike" which was easy & quite newbie-friendly.
Went back to my bike and found:
Saddle height - way too low. Decathlon set it at the “lowest setting”, I needed to adjust it up at least 25mm (and I can go higher but I was immediately more comfortable so I’ll leave it here for now).
Saddle anglet - pointed UPWARDS. I downloaded a leveller app and used a yoga block to put my phone on top of it - it was 3 degrees pointing “up”. Adjusted it to as close to level - now 1.5 degrees “down” (the next notch was 5.5 degrees down).
I did a bit of trial and error and settled at the above adjustments and it immediately took the pressure off my hide and is more comfortable. Also took the gel cover off and it was more comfortable.
Thanks again to all the pointers in this forum. As it turned out, having an improperly set up bike and trouble with the 7-speed to 11-speed Kickr setup has forced me to get some tools and fiddle around with the bike - and I’ve learned much more in the last 24 hours than I thought I would need to know. It’s good - now I know how to adjust a bunch of things, I can tweak as I go if I run into other issues when I put some proper KMs into it.
Ha! Please email my brother-in-law and help me convince him to do this too! It seems counter-intuitive to some people, but massive pads are usually less comfy.
So glad you got this all sorted. Feel free to ask any more questions that may come up, there are some knowledgeable folks here, I’ve found. And Park Tool is the go-to for a lot of videos, Calvin is my zen master.
What a wonderful discussion and so “educational” for someone like myself jumping on the Zwift train.
Getting the Zwifthub (and mat coz it’s Christmas-ish). Then to tick the 8-12 cassette tickbox, I went to double-check my Raleigh Strada X and my heart sank when I counted just 7…
But thanks to this forum I’ve purchased a 7-speed cassette that matches my bike spec… and then just need amazon for a “lock ring bit tool”. I’ve had the bike for two years and only ridden it once simply because London is not the place for a bike to have a happy life. But thanks to everyone here, a bike gets a new breath of life!
I love the bike so looking forward to finally enjoying some rides. Thanks everyone for this wonderful useful advice and see you in there
I see everybody is giving great instructions. The only step I did not see mentioned, which makes this really easy with no trial and error is… Before you remove your rear wheel from your bike, measure the distance between the seventh gear and the frame. When you put it on the trainer with the new cassette, the spacing between the seventh gear and the frame should be the same. this will tell you how many shims you need or how thick the shims need to be. Because it won’t be the same for every trainer and every bike. I use 5.5mm worth of shims for my setup to function properly.
I now have the problem of having signed up to a triathlon, so need to constantly put the bike on and off the Wahoo (and end up with a bunch of grease on my hands as it’s been mostly trial and error).
All - should I just buy another road bike? Or what’s the “next” bike to buy after one has a road bike? A gravel? A hybrid? A MTB? A full on triathlon bike??
Unless you learn to love triathlon and do it a lot, I wouldn’t buy a dedicated triathlon bike. A second road bike would be more useful if you mostly ride on the trainer and on roads. A gravel bike with two chainrings would probably be fine on the trainer or doing the odd road ride, especially if you have a second set of wheels set up with road tires. Hybrids and mountain bikes are not as useful for putting on the trainer but if you have good trail access and enjoy mountain biking then by all means get a mountain bike. My current collection of ridable bikes is two road bikes, a gravel bike, a mountain bike for trails, and an old mountain bike for around town. I prefer road riding but I live on an unpaved road so it’s nice to have the gravel rig to avoid driving to a ride.
I am currently using a 7 speed 32- 12 cassette on my Kikr Core. I got around the spacer problem by taking the second smallest cog off a 9 speed mountain bike cassette, which is exactly 4.5 mm wide. I placed it on the shimano hub before putting the 7 speed cassette on. It works perfectly.
It seems counter-intuitive to some people, but massive pads are usually less comfy.