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Comment by stef25 | Hacker News Reader

Injuries though, don't disregard them ... Cycling's a lot easier on the joints I guess.

I just finished a ride from outside DC to Pittsburgh over 3 days, ~365 miles(587km). So 10% of Lachlan's ride. I had saddle pain after day 1, so I stood on the pedals more. This quickly became knee pain, due to the extra exertion on my joints. So I transitioned between standing and sitting, and then my shoulders and arms started hurting :)

Mark Beaumont[0] has said something along the lines of "fix every problem early". I should have gotten chamois cream instead of standing up.

Anyway, all that to say I have no idea how Lachlan could do this without falling apart. Really incredible.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Beaumont_(cyclist)

I did a 3 month bike tour. On days I traveled, I went 60-80 miles on a touring bike with 30 lbs of gear strapped to it.

My experience was exactly the same as yours for the first week. I puked 4 or 5 times that week from riding up the maritime alps. Then after that I was a machine and felt like I could go forever. No pain, no chamois cream as others have mentioned - just padded compression shorts and lots of sunscreen.

If you are experiencing saddle pain after only one day (even a big day like you did!) of riding, it might be that your ride position needs some tweaking. A smooth pedal stroke will have you bouncing on the saddle less.

I switched over to riding a recumbant bike for long tours. I would never bike commute on one because it's not quite as nimble (e.g. if one has to swerve suddenly; you can't move your weight around), but for long touring caring tons of gear it's the best!

Top-end touring bikes are about $6-7k now, and you can get an Azub build for about the same price.

Just make sure to practice a lot, especially with a loaded bike!

I broke my right leg in six places on a recumbent, they have some very unexpected failure modes. Be careful.

Yikes - sounds like this failure mode needs to be elaborated on.

On a normal bike the area where your foot can get caught under the bike is limited to the bit in front of the pedals. That's very bad when it happens but the chances of it happening are very small. On a recumbent that area is pretty much everything forward of your hips and when it goes wrong you're in a feed-forward loop that you can't break out of with a normal physique.

As it happened: hit a speed bump, right leg slipped off the pedel, foot hit the pavement, leg was sucked under the bike at the forward speed of the bike. Ambulance ride, quite a bit of time in the hospital waiting for a slot for the operation, 7 hour operation (pretty long for something as simple as a leg fracture, which turned out to be a lot less simple once things were opened up and accessible because some of the bone fragments were too small to be reliably fixed in place). Almost five years later now and I still have two 30 cm chunks of stainless in there and a large number of screws to hold it all together. Intermittent pain (usually associated with fast temperature changes) and needing to 'warm up' for quite a long time in the morning before I can get around without discomfort.

Avoid recumbents.

This is useful info, thank you for the insight

You're welcome. Note that depending on the ride height this is going to be made worse as you get lower to the ground and you have even less time/space to react. Low racers are probably the highest risk category recumbent, both due to the (easily achievable) very high speeds and the fact that there is hardly any clearance at all between the frame and the ground.

Pedel->pedal.

They turn out to be somewhat vulnerable to being sat on by a hippopotamus.

Are you saying you undertook a ride like that without using chamois cream from the get-go? Dang, man.

Not for nothing, but the amount of riding you did there isn't CRAZY high for a serious cyclist. Often, fit or biomechanical issues don't show up until longer efforts. If you're still into riding, I'd look into a professional fit.

I use chamois cream for every "serious" ride (which means anything but popping to the shops in my jeans) now. My butt used to be tougher but now I get saddle sores much more easily, particularly when riding indoors with worse ventilation and a more static position.

Yeah, certainly any workout-worthy ride needs cream and proper shorts.

Did you take the C&O to the GAP?

If so, very nice work doing that in 3 days! The climb at the start of the GAP is quite a workout

I did, and it was! I was short on time. I think stretching to 5 days would be perfect. I missed a lot of really cool towns due to time constraints. But that just means I can do it again and have a totally new experience :)

You set out to ride 365 miles without chamois cream?

Ouchie.

If your set up is good and you are used to regular riding shouldn't be a problem for 30 days of ~120 let alone 3. Assuming proper shorts and a good seat, of course.

Brooks B17, plain street shorts, no chamois... it is like sitting in your favorite easy chair.

For a short ride, perhaps. After a while most people will get chafing sores. A hard saddle, proper position and padded shorts "hurts" a bit on the sitting bones, but after one's adapted one can bike almost forever without any bum issues.

Did you ride the Great Allegheny Passage?

Injuries are best prevented by slowly ramping up the distance. Many people see rapid progress in cardiovascular fitness but neglect strength work, quickly increase the distance and it results in injury. This is particularly true if you have led a sedentary lifestyle for years and decide to get fit!

It's certainly easier on the joints, although you're right about injuries. Knee pain regularly takes out professionals. Really important to know when to stop pushing.

Lachlan did a full 10-12 hour day in sandals because he was having knee pain starting.

Currently I've been "out" for almost a month cause of a few runs I did on a beach (usually I run in the forest). Obviously sand works your muscles in different ways but I didn't expect it to hit me this hard. Super frustrating.

You can somewhat mitigate this by running down on the apron, close to the water. (though; I assume maybe that's what you did because running/hiking in dry sand is damn hard).

oof, I remember trying some runs in the sand before and had to stop much sooner than I would've liked. It really worked my calves in a way that I was not used to.

Why do sandals help knees?

the sandals helped his blisters, but also he switched to flat pedals from clipless. That gives you extra freedom to move your foot to find a comfortable position, which can help with some joint pain. Me, I find saddle height is the biggest influence on my knee pain (too low, patella pain, too high, popliteal pain; my experience is from cycling from here in scotland to Corsica and back touring around france, among other tours. I'm a lot older and slower than Lachlan, tho)

normal cycling shoes have a cleat you lock into the pedal with that allow very little movement. sometimes just a few mm of position change is all it takes to relieve a nagging ache and im guessing he found it easier to get comfortable with a shoe he can move around on the pedal.

I've stopped mid ride to adjust my cleats just a smidge when i was feeling discomfort. you don't want to mess around with knee pain especially when riding 12 hours a day

I suspect you're exactly right. I actually wish he would've said why the sandals specifically helped him because my immediate reaction was also, "what?"

Here's the article about it that has a picture of his sandal setup: https://cyclingtips.com/2021/06/lachlan-morton-just-rode-two...

In an interview with Sporza he said on day 1 he had knee issues because his cleat slipped. On day 2 he rode through the pain. On day 3 he wore sandals on his trip to a shop and noticed his knee didn’t hurt. So he bought flat pedals and continued on those using the sandals.

He also said the shop did not let him buy only the pedals so he bought the whole bike just for the pedals.

I have a pair of these SPD/flat pedals on my cross bike (it’s a light cross so I use it on road and even to commute if I need). Nice to be able to switch based on the ride.

https://www.rei.com/product/668198/shimano-m324-spd-pedals

On my mountain bike I clip in but use a shimano saints pedal that has a wide base so you can distribute weight off the clip a bit.

>Cycling's a lot easier on the joints I guess.

murder on the perineum though.

I get that people think this, but it's really not true. With a good saddle that fits you on a bike that ALSO fits you, and good quality biking shorts (or a good quality bib), perineum pain doesn't really enter into it.

Takes some practice but very comfortable: https://spongywonder.com/

Not for me anymore: https://www.sellesmp.com/en/pro.html

ymmv

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