Racing handlebars and sore hands anybody ?
The handlebars on my Trek1000 racer are typical racer type with the sora gear shifters at the brake levers etc etc, I have changed hand position numerous times when I am out on a ride and the way I usually hold the bars is right at where the gear shifters are.
I dont like the holding the horizontal portion of the bar at all and I dont crouch right down and grip them in the curved portion neither, as I find that position to be a back breaker.
My saddle is adjusted to the correct riding height for me and the riding position is very comfortable, yet, on both hands at the thumb leading around to the index finger , I often get what I can best describe as "tiredness" in there and I have to splay my fingers and thumbs in order to relieve it. I have cycling gloves but do prefer not to use them, I like the feel of the bars in hand with nothing in between.
Am I doing something wrong or is this hand tiredness something that is par for the course ?
JimmyK
I dont like the holding the horizontal portion of the bar at all and I dont crouch right down and grip them in the curved portion neither, as I find that position to be a back breaker.
My saddle is adjusted to the correct riding height for me and the riding position is very comfortable, yet, on both hands at the thumb leading around to the index finger , I often get what I can best describe as "tiredness" in there and I have to splay my fingers and thumbs in order to relieve it. I have cycling gloves but do prefer not to use them, I like the feel of the bars in hand with nothing in between.
Am I doing something wrong or is this hand tiredness something that is par for the course ?
JimmyK
0
Comments
-
-
My cycling gloves are cheapies, Im going to LBS on Thursday morning, can you suggest makers of gloves that will definitely take the thumb/index finger tiredness out of the equation ?
Looked on ebay.co.uk but couldnt see any that I thought thats the one. Ill pay up to £15 max for the gloves if they will help.
edit: by gloves, I am referring to the mitt type.
JimmyK0 -
If you're not using that position at all, raise your bars a bit so you do - at least you'll have more than one position option then. I don't wear gloves either and don't have a problem (if anything I find I get a problem with gloves!)JimmyK wrote:I dont crouch right down and grip them in the curved portion neither, as I find that position to be a back breaker.0 -
Gloves might not help much. If you are used to using gloves you will get a bit more tiredness when you ride without them but conversely when you are used to riding without gloves using them could also make the tiredness worse. Get the bars in a position so that you feel comfortable to use the other positions and even when resting on the top of the levers you should be able rest a bit further back on the palm of your hand.0
-
I put gel padding under the somewhat thin tape on my trek 1000. Comfy for miles now.
I think your problem sounds more like positional tho' . Resting on the 'hoods' is the default position for many riders and should feel comfy. perhaps your bars are too low or too far away. Get a good bke shop to check
and wear gloves....they're great when you fall off if nothing else...
0 -
I was thinking about this on the way to work this morning. I find my commuting bike pretty uncomfortable once I get past 10 or so miles - but the geometry isn't massively different from my uber comfortable bike.
The major difference between the two bikes is the bars and tape/padding. On my good bike it's got wing shaped bars, thin fizik bar tape and gel underneath - on my commuting bike I've got normal cylindrical bars with just thin fizik tape. I find that when I'm on the tops on my good bike I can rest my palms on the flat bits of the wings - can't do this on my commuting bike. I've also got Sora shifters on my commuting bike - these don't fit my hands aswell as the Campagnolo shifters on my other two bikes.0 -
Up your budget by a fiver and get a pair of these from Prendas;JimmyK wrote:My cycling gloves are cheapies, Im going to LBS on Thursday morning, can you suggest makers of gloves that will definitely take the thumb/index finger tiredness out of the equation ?
Looked on ebay.co.uk but couldnt see any that I thought thats the one. Ill pay up to £15 max for the gloves if they will help.
http://www.prendas.co.uk/details.asp?ty ... d=6&ID=595
They are probably the best track mitts I've ever had.0 -
You may have a bit too much of your weight pressing down through your hands on the bars in which case an adjustment of position may help, maybe raising them slightly, or tilting up. Depending on where the levers are on the bars, that could make a differeence too.
Decent gloves would probably help a bit but tend to be better for numbness affecting other parts of the hands.I\'m sure I had one of those here somewhere0 -
When a test rode a Tarmac 07 for about twenty minutes my hands felt really tired afterwards and the LBC said I would get used to it (I had been riding a MTB up until then) . I didn't really believe them. To me it felt like too much weight was going into my hands. On the Izoard I don't have the problem. I don't think it has anything to do with gloves, it's more about weight distribution. The height of the saddle above the bars was probably greater on the Tarmac and I notice on the 08 model they have increased the length of the head tube. Also the saddle may have been closer to the bars.0
-
HOW does anyone ride sans gloves at 0 deg C and a 20-30 mph wind? I'd crash before I got to bottom of hill on which i live!d.j.
"Cancel my subscription to the resurrection."0 -
Pain in the hands is often a symptom of a position problem on the bike. The fact that getting down in the drops is described as a back breaker supports this. Your handlebars may be too low, and you may have a reach issue if the tops are uncomfortable as well. This is pure speculation based on words on a screen, but asking a (knowledgeable) bike mechanic to just check out your position on the bike can't hurt.0
-
I don't - the gloves I wear then don't have edges in the same place mitts do which is what I find uncomfortable. However if it's warm enough I go with bare hands - I thought it was rather obvious what we meant by saying that we didn't wear gloves to ride.meagain wrote:HOW does anyone ride sans gloves at 0 deg C and a 20-30 mph wind? I'd crash before I got to bottom of hill on which i live!
Anyway, on that point, what do people who wear gloves all the time do if going on a ride where you might need gloves for warmth at the start but want to take them off later? Do you stop to swap between the two (as opposed to just taking the warm ones off and shoving them in my back pocket as I do)?0 -
aracer wrote:meagain wrote:HOW does anyone ride sans gloves at 0 deg C and a 20-30 mph wind? I'd crash before I got to bottom of hill on which i live!
Anyway, on that point, what do people who wear gloves all the time do if going on a ride where you might need gloves for warmth at the start but want to take them off later? Do you stop to swap between the two (as opposed to just taking the warm ones off and shoving them in my back pocket as I do)?
if you wear gloves all the time then you don't take them off. I wear mitts all the time. I always have and whille in really hot conditions when climbing a col I would no doubt be cooler with them off, I'm just used to the feel of the bike with gloves on, and somehow I feel a bit naked without them.
gloves offer a lot of protection for the hands in crashes ... bare hands is not a great idea IMO0 -
Altura Gel Gloves (<15 pounds)
Gel padding under bar tape
Raise the stem
All good options. Also, there is a matter of getting used to it. It took me a while, but all of the above helped a lot.0 -
You seem to be missing the point. You surely don't wear warm (ie Windstopper / insulated) gloves all the time, and neither do you just wear mitts when it's cold do you? The question is what do you do if you need thermal gloves for warmth at the start of the ride, but later on these get too warm and you want to be in mitts. Or as a glove fundamentalist do you just put up with non-optimum temperature for part of the ride?wildmoustache wrote:if you wear gloves all the time then you don't take them off. I wear mitts all the time. I always have and whille in really hot conditions when climbing a col I would no doubt be cooler with them off, I'm just used to the feel of the bike with gloves on, and somehow I feel a bit naked without them.
Sure they'd help if you put your hand down when crashing, but I find I tend to still be gripping the bars when I hit the ground in a crash.0 -
aracer wrote:
You seem to be missing the point. You surely don't wear warm (ie Windstopper / insulated) gloves all the time, and neither do you just wear mitts when it's cold do you? The question is what do you do if you need thermal gloves for warmth at the start of the ride, but later on these get too warm and you want to be in mitts. Or as a glove fundamentalist do you just put up with non-optimum temperature for part of the ride?wildmoustache wrote:if you wear gloves all the time then you don't take them off. I wear mitts all the time. I always have and whille in really hot conditions when climbing a col I would no doubt be cooler with them off, I'm just used to the feel of the bike with gloves on, and somehow I feel a bit naked without them.
Sure they'd help if you put your hand down when crashing, but I find I tend to still be gripping the bars when I hit the ground in a crash.
a more accurate description of our exchange might be that you mis-described your point first time round
Seriously, we all put up with non-optimum temperatures to some degree, and if that makes me a mitt/glove fundamentalist then so be it.
When it's cold (as cold as I ride in, perhaps 2 or 3 oC) I will wear a pair of sealskin inners, and a loser pair of waterproof gloves on top. If it got much hotter than I could take off the waterproofs or the sealskins and go down to one layer. Both are small and will fit easily into one jersey pocket.
A bit warmer and I sometimes wear mitts (specialized pro mitts right now) on top of some sealskins. Again, you can remove one or both, but in sort of riding conditions we've had over the past 3 months, this has been a very good combo.
With things warming up, I'm down to just the mitts now. I'd never really take those off to be honest.0 -
wildmoustache wrote:aracer wrote:
You seem to be missing the point. You surely don't wear warm (ie Windstopper / insulated) gloves all the time, and neither do you just wear mitts when it's cold do you? The question is what do you do if you need thermal gloves for warmth at the start of the ride, but later on these get too warm and you want to be in mitts. Or as a glove fundamentalist do you just put up with non-optimum temperature for part of the ride?wildmoustache wrote:if you wear gloves all the time then you don't take them off. I wear mitts all the time. I always have and whille in really hot conditions when climbing a col I would no doubt be cooler with them off, I'm just used to the feel of the bike with gloves on, and somehow I feel a bit naked without them.
Sure they'd help if you put your hand down when crashing, but I find I tend to still be gripping the bars when I hit the ground in a crash.
a more accurate description of our exchange might be that you mis-described your point first time round
Seriously, we all put up with non-optimum temperatures to some degree, and if that makes me a mitt/glove fundamentalist then so be it.
When it's cold (as cold as I ride in, perhaps 2 or 3 oC) I will wear a pair of sealskin inners, and a loser pair of waterproof gloves on top. If it got much hotter than I could take off the waterproofs or the sealskins and go down to one layer. Both are small and will fit easily into one jersey pocket.
A bit warmer and I sometimes wear mitts (specialized pro mitts right now) on top of some sealskins. Again, you can remove one or both, but in sort of riding conditions we've had over the past 3 months, this has been a very good combo.
With things warming up, I'm down to just the mitts now. I'd never really take those off to be honest.
To enter this debate - I wear mitts and carry Assos lobster gloves if there's a risk of getting cold hands - If it's v. cold I wear full gloves before I leave home and it'll generally be cold enough to wear them for the whole ride.0 -
So do you put the warm gloves on over mitts, or take the mitts off?0
-
-
Gosh they are heavy gloves!acorn_user wrote:Altura Gel Gloves (<15 pounds)
Gel padding under bar tape
Raise the stem
All good options. Also, there is a matter of getting used to it. It took me a while, but all of the above helped a lot.0
