Numb hands - help and advice needed

rohloff-rich

A friend of mine is having the following issue:

During road rides, my hands get a kind of pins and needles feeling and eventually end up numb. After particularly long/tough rides or on roads with a rubbish surface (so that'll be just about all of the roads in edinburgh), it goes for the nerve in my hands too. I rest my hands on the hoods about 99% of the time and guess it’s the vibrations from the road/rubbish surface that causes it. Is there anything I can do to stop or help this - other than try to move my hands more?

Can anyone help? Any advice much appreciated 8)

Fixed Wheelnut

First and foremost check out the position on the bike, bars too far forward or too low can force too much bodyweight onto the hands.
Once that is sorted look at better gloves/bar tape combo.
Specialised Body Geometry gloves and Specialised Bar Phat wrap tape has gel inserts to go under the tape, I use this and it works well.

Also I know you don't want to hear it but move your hands around more it does work.

bobtravers

Fixed Wheelnut wrote:

Specialized Body Geometry gloves and Specialized Bar Phat wrap tape has gel inserts to go under the tape, I use this and it works well.

Yeah, since I got myself some Spech gloves, absolutely no numbness, even in 100-125 km runs... Might try some...

Dorian Gray

The problem is most likely that his position puts too much weight on the hands. Assuming the frame size is correct, the solution is not to jack the bars up or shorten the stem, both of which ruin the aerodynamic position that he bought a road bike for in the first place. Also, think about it: if there is too much weight on the hands, that means the upper body is not balanced properly. Moving the bars around an inch or two will not solve this problem, but merely very slightly change the force on the hands.

In fact, although it's not particularly intuitive, the best way to reduce weight on the hands is to move the saddle backwards. Yes, this stretches you out even more (although very little so it's not really noticeable). But when riding a bicycle your body effectively pivots around the pedals. Your buttocks and thighs counteract the weight of your upper body and head, all balanced around the pedals like a seesaw. By moving your buttocks rearwards they get more leverage around the pedals to counteract the weight of your upper body, thus removing the pressure from your hands. And because the unwanted pressure on your hands, while problematic, is relatively small compared to the weight of your body, a small shift backwards causes a large reduction in the pressure on your hands, while at the same time not having a large affect on your power and aerodynamics.

Try moving the saddle rearward on the rails in half-inch increments until the problem disappears. A properly set-up road bike is comfortable for hours of riding, even on the drops. People who disagree with this have either got dormant injuries which affect their comfort, or have just never got their position correct.

portuguese mike

it's also worth bearing in mind that correct positioning on a bike also involves your posture. a bike may be properly set up but if you're not sat on it correctly you could still be uncomfortable.

i used to suffer from numb hands and traced the problem (via a bike fitting session) to my posture - i was bending my upper body from the waist rather than from the hips (which gives you a straighter back) and although bending from the hips actually puts your shoulders a bit closer to the bars it actually allows your core muscles to support your upper body far more effectively thus reducing the weight on your hands and i've been riding blissfully ever since.

this may not, of course, be you're mates problem but in short if they're a keen cyclist and its ruining their fun then getting properly fitted at a decent LBS wil probably be money very well spent.

oh and i use specialised BG cloves - they're excellent