My achin' baaack! (suspension question)

I've been avoiding this because I want to be sensitive to the shocks that my bike absorbs. But I think that riding a hard-tail is causing me too much back pain. Unless I'm just sleeping on it wrong. That's been known to happen.

Anyway, I'm about ready to design myself a well suspended seat and post. I"ve got an idea in mind.

But before I do; does anyone know of a commercially available, well sprung seat post. It can not be the typical spring loaded seatpost. I'm a fairly tall guy and the nose of my seat must be behind, or at least directly above, my downtube. Otherwise the bike's too small for me.

Picture a seatpost that's well laid back. Now picture that laid back post with some kind of spring. Is there such a thing available?

Thanks.

Okay, folks. Thanks for your suggestions. At the moment I've done nothing to 'soften' the bike. Two reasons for this. One is that I really do believe in keeping my bike unsuspended and being the one and only shock absorber. Also I'm not sure that my bout of back pain is entirely due to the bike, though it's likely a contributing factor. There've been times when my back has gotten sore after a week or two of riding my motorized bicycle. What I usually do is switch to my plain old pedal bike for a week or two. Mostly I regard my motorized bicycle as my 'foul weather' bike. But now that I'm in my 50s I'm finding that all of July and August are too foul for me. Even taking it quite easy I'm covered in sweat, my eyes are burning from the salt, etc. So I must rely on my motorized bicycle until mid-September at least.

So what I've done, instead, is to adjust my riding stance. I've changed the handlebars. The ones that were on had my hands in almost exactly the same place as the original 'cruiser' bars that came with the bike. I've changed to something that is closer to mountain bike style bars. They still have some rise and sweep. But my hands are closer to side-to-side than running 'lengthwise'.

Also changed the seat. I had on a Suntour Cloud 9. They certainly look and feel like a nice seat. Yet I've always had trouble being quite comfortable on them. On more than one bike. Switched to an old Bell gel patched cruiser seat. The type you get at Wal-Mart for 25 bucks or so. Mostly had better luck with them. We'll see.

Between the seat and the handlebars I have more room to adjust my 'attitude' on the bike. I'm getting myself a bit more leaned over. When I can find the right balance, I'm sure I'll be able to protect my back better.

Just for the heck of it, here's a photo.


On an unrelated subject, note the mountain bike bar ends mounted inside the grips and levers. They make a terrific mirror mount.

It's true; the fat grips are a good idea and I'm going to have to consider it.

Also, I did follow bigbutterbean's suggestion and replaced my fork with a shock absorber type off of a mountain bike.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was reluctant because I wanted to be the one and only shock absorber. But there's no sense carrying a good idea too far, after all.

The shock absorbers up front do make one heckuva difference. I just might be converted.