The original question was very good, very sincere. I’ve seen such questions elsewhere online, but I’ve not found answers.
Generally the answers that are given about fit and position for a Zwift setup generally range from useless to remonstrative. Either people talk about how it’s their outdoor bike anyway, so whatever, to reasons for personal failings and how to fix them (e.g., “strengthen your core” or “you need to get out of the saddle more”). Even the “it’s all about outdoors anyway,” while fair, is not answering the question. None of those are actual answers.
For example, getting out of your saddle more while on Zwift: cycling upright out of the saddle is potentially destructive to your pedal stroke. After all, the outdoor stroke is elliptical due to the forward motion, and out of saddle on a trainer, it is perfectly circular. For an experienced outdoor rider, this feels weird to the point I feel like I might injure myself. So that is not a good solution and seems to be potentially harmful.
Ultimately the question regards adjustments to a bicycle for indoor riding, not adjustments to the human body. In fact it’s absurd to request adjustments to the human body. Like, do you wait to ride indoors until you’ve made the requisite adjustments to your body? And how do you do that without riding? Oh I’m going to do situps and planks for a month and not ride? Don’t neglect your core, sure, but that’s a trivial fact of life, not a prerequisite for Zwifting.
Like many other Zwifters, I have a second old road bike that I have dedicated to my indoor setup. I have been tweaking it to make it better indoors. Of course, at first it got a training tire. And then another change: I just replaced the crankset with a heavier crankset that has a more optimal crank length for me. Another win. This was a simple change that has alleviated pain I suffer from osteoarthritis in my knee. This was a no-brainer. My indoor crank length now matches my outdoor and that’s better for my actual size.
But I need other adjustments. I’m hoping for help, advice, suggestions that answer the question of fitting the bike for indoors.
I am coming to grips (pun intended) with the need for a more upright position indoors. I just replaced my wide carbon fiber handlebars with narrower shallower (and heavier because indoors) handlebars. However I still feel like my torso is too low forward and too stretched out. As a result I find myself ending up wholly off the bars sitting upright hands-free quite frequently. And when I do that off and on for 80 minutes in a racing saddle I picked for outdoors riding, one that worked great for outdoor riding, well, the result is pain. My tailbone aches on the regular now. If I put the same kind of miles outdoors I’d be slung forward and nose riding and in and out of the saddle and would never be an issue.
Riding indoors is necessarily a more upright riding style. One look at all the spin bikes and indoor cycling bikes of the last 40 years will show you that. Look at the handlebars, look at those saddles. Look at the relative positioning. Look at the lack of forward motion.
So I can already tell the right answer is to move bars upright and obtain a saddle more optimal for upright riding. But 25 years of riding a racing saddle outdoors, I look at those larger seats and imagine terrible chafing and squishiness. What I’d like to hear is that, for those who have in fact figured this out, how are you changing your indoor position, and what are you using to do it? Are you replacing your stem? Shortening your reach? What saddles are more optimal for indoor riding?
One idea I’ve been toying with is to get one of those adjustable stems. Another is to find a saddle more appropriate for sitting but one that won’t chafe me.
I’m not an indoor racer. I need it for indoor exercise. It’s the only exercise I actually enjoy and like anyone else I need it for my health and wellness. This is all about making it easier to get into the saddle five days a week, tolerating 60-90 minutes, and not feeling physically destroyed off the bike. I also have a chronic inflammatory disease, and exercise is critical to my life. Winning a sprint, KOM or race is simply irrelevant. I just want to ride: indoors when the outdoors are prohibitive, and outdoors because that’s the beauty of it all.