Advice Please

[theshrew]

Id like to ask you guys some advice please.

Used to ride loads when i was younger but havnt done for probably 10 + years now.

Thought id start to do a bit of riding again. Went out on Sat for a nice ride didnt go crazy but didnt hang about either. Not sure how far it was because a lot of it was off road but was out for just under 2 hours to be honest i wanted to go further but my legs / bum couldnt take any more.

Anyway yesterday and today im in pain my legs are killing me. I no im unfit these days and have to expect some of this but never thought it would be this bad. + my bottom feels like a full prison wing has had a go at it.

So my questions are

Did i go to far ?
How can i speed up the recovery of my legs ?
How do i stop my saddle sore ( got some pants on order but anything else you can do ? )

[Liquid Knight]

Sounds like you've used muscles you'd forgotten you had.

First lower the seat at least half an Inch until you're back on form. Your quadroceps aren't used to being streached and would be pulling you back into the sadle. Maybe fit a wider gel seat as well untill the clutinous tissue gets used to being used as well.

Second it takes muscle tissue three days to recover properly so take it easy for a couple and go for a leasurely ride Wednesday just to get them moving again. If you're sore today you'll be stiff tomorrow. Always streach the muscles after use. Have a warm up ride, streach, ride out, streach at the end and relax in a bath or shower to oxygenate the skin helping you to recover quicker.

Third enjoy yourself, if you're taking it too seriously then you're missing the point. Take in the country side and all that fresh air. You'll feel better for it than tear-arsing (no pun intended) about like a loon.

[anonymous-user]

at a guess you were probably pushing too high a gear as i assume your thighs were burning so you could do with dropping down a gear or two and picking up the cadence (rpm). even though you are just having fun, some stretches at the end would also be helpful for the next morning... just some simple calf, quad and hamstring stretches wil suffice.

[Flippin' Kipper]

Proper biking shorts with a padded under short will help a lot. As to how far you went I can keep an easy pace of 10km per hour off road over a long distance so maybe 15k or so if you have not ridden for a while - it is surprisingly slow off road.

[theshrew]

Thanks for the advice.

Will lower the seat see if that helps with my bottom issues lol.

Think it was probably a case of me doing to much to soon really im not as youg as i used to be. Suppose i have to respect my body isnt used to doing anything like this for a quite a large ammount of time and will take a while to get back into it.