My rocker info.
As to front end height, that is more about comfort, but can be tried as a test for this issue as well.
When you have a bike that is perfectly comfortable outside, and then leads to problems when ridden inside, I feel it is important to look at what is different. When you do, there are two key differences.
- Lack of wind resistance on the body riding inside. That is a difference that I find because you end up with slightly more weight on the hands and arms, because you don’t have the wind pushing your upper body back.
- To compensate for that, I recommend that people raise the front axle about 1"-2" [25mm-50mm] higher than the rear axle. This shifts the weight slightly back onto the saddle and off the hands and arms.
- A bike mounted into a typical trainer ends up being very fixed and rigid in position. This can lead to excessive loading on the sit bones on the saddle because there is no shift in the demand on the muscles and tissue around them.
- The non-equipment solution is to introduce standing breaks into your riding. Anything from every 5 to 10 minutes is common. These breaks can be for anything from 10 seconds or pedal strokes, up to minutes at a time if desired (for saddle relief directly or other training reasons).
- The equipment solution I recommend is adding motion to the trainer setup. The Kinetic Rock and Roll trainer was my inspiration. But I made a simple double plate stand with a hinge that allowed me to mount a rigid trainer and turn it into a rocking trainer. These are called “Rocker Plates”.