sorry didn't mean of the alcoholic variety... Am feeling the apin in back a lot on the racer, spoke to one of my docs at work who is a roadie and he thinks I need women specific drop bars, I am on a budget can anyone help, or do they know of a fitting/assessment service in south england that may help sorry for all the posts too!
Gayle, I intially had low back pain when riding my roadbike (used to an upright MTB position). In my case I felt the drop from the saddle to the bars was too much (I have short arms) so I turned my stem over to give it a bit more rise. My bike had been built with the stem with a negative rise in typical roadie style. If you can't turn the stem over perhaps you could raise the bars by adding a spacer underneath the stem?
I have a women's bar (an ITM Elle) on my roadie, I specced it because I had a go on several sets of drops and I found that with the "men's" ones the actual drop was too deep. My Elle has a much shallower drop.
Not sure about cheap fitting services but the rule of thumb with road bars is that the curved drop part should be as wide as your shoulders.
To test grip a set of bars on the bottom of the drops curl your arm towards your shoulders and and the front part of the curve should hit the tops of your arms. difficult to explain but easy to do.
In reality most non women specific road bikes will have 42cm wide bars or wider whereas womens specific will have 40 or less.
Womens specific bars also have a shallower drop to enable better reach of the brakes from the drops. I've used Deda 4 Girls at £16.99 I'm quite happy with them I think they go down to 36's if you're really small!
You might need to think about stem length as well if you feel a bit stretched - knees and elbows should miss each other by about 4 cm when in full crouch position.
I suspect it's the height/distance rather than the width - especially as you're used to mtb.
The reason I say this is that I'm pretty sure all the Carrera bikes have the same width bars as they just use standard stock - and my Carrera road bike has 410mm bars (I know cos I retaped the bars on Saturday and it's stamped on them!). I measured as I thought this was an odd size, and they're 410 outside to outside - which makes them 400 standard measurement. I have narrow shoulders, according to the bikefit at the TCR show, but the bars are fine for me - you should also be fine with them.
I would guess that Julbags is right and you've got too aggressive a riding position to start with. You may have to raise the bars a lot - get them quite a bit higher than the seat. It'll look odd, but you can gradually lower them as you get used to it. Also, try rotating the bars up and towards you a little bit - it might well be that your position is fine but that you're stretching for the brakes - those brake levers are a further 2-3" away from the bars. If that's the issue, Daphne's suggestion of new bars might solve it, otherwise you can stick a spacer-thing (dunno the technical term) into the gap behind the levers and that brings them closer.
As Daphne says, check the stem length - my Carrera came with a 110 stem. It's been fine till now, but I want a more aggressive riding position, so I bought a 90mm stem today so that I can lower it without adding length. Also, as you know, I have a really long back and short legs for my height - you've got the opposite problem after your injury, so you'd probably need a much shorter stem - check to see what they've given you as standard.
Ah women's bars......got the 3T Eva bars fitted to both my road bikes - very comfortable. I have the 38/42 so the bars are narrow up top and flare out to give extra stability when on the drops. It's also worth looking at the stem length, as the 'classic' fit is 100mm (for men) whilst you may find a shorter stem will bring the bars back to a more comfortable and controllable position. My bikes have 50mm stems (specifically built to be like this).
just had a look at the picture you posted of your bike and your stem appears to be "turned over" already, however the bars seem to slant down quite a bit to the hoods increasing the distance somewhat. My bars are quite flat to the hoods.
Mine are 40cm wide which fits my shoulders nicely, however I found that they didn't make the reach to the brakes any easier and I had shims fitted (as Kit mentioned above) to bring the brakes in a bit, this also helped. I got the shims from specialized (Slim Shims), they don't bring them into the UK except for warranty purposes but they let me have a pair for a bout £4 (a lot cheaper than short reach STIs). I think these shims may be restricted to Shimano 105/Ultegra level stuff only though so check. you can also change the position of the shifters on the bar a bit as well.
There will be a period of adjustment on the bike as you get used to the more stretched out position, particularly if you MTB position is fairly upright. The static position on the roadbike shows up fiting problems a lot more than on an MTB.
It is also likely you will have to change things a bit, especially if you weren't "fitted" to the bike. I was fitted for my frame on a jig (they only had customers small bikes built up not stock) but accepted that I may have to change stems etc later as I had no idea what it felt like to really ride a roadbike. I have a feeling I will be changing the stem on mine for a longer one as I feel really scrunched up in the drops - and those Eva Bars look good as well.
I like the idea of the flaring out bars. Only thing is that if you go for the narrower bars, there's no room for tri-bars too, so I'd be trying to swap bars between races and rides and that all seems far too much work - swapping over brake/gear levers and cables... Of course, in an ideal world, I'd have a road bike and a tt bike, but now I really am dreaming...
