Sore hands

dUNC

Hi.

I've just got my new and first road bike and I'm having an issue with sore hands, or more specifically a sore thumb. I've taken to gripping around the hoods with a a pistol grip with my index finger able to rest on on the shifter as required. However, very quickly I develop a pain at the base of my thumb (the large fleshy part/muscle thing - I'm no anatomist! ) and in the V. I'd best liken the pain to if you're carrying something heavy (say a plank of wood, or a cardboard box) between your thumb and index finger to the point that you have to drop it it hurts too much.

If I adopt different hand positions it's less painful, e.g. bringing the hands back to just behind the hoods, sitting right on top of the hoods (thumb resting up top), on the drops, or on the handlebar (not really sure what you call it - but the long flat bit in the middle ). Pulling on the brakes seems to aggravate it also.

I wondered if this was a common "you'll get used to/over it" problem or if it's an indication of poor fit? My dirty little secret is that it's a Planet X and hence didn't get a bike fit ("what, first road bike and no fit? Silly billy!" ) so I'm fully open to the suggestion there's a problem there. I'm seriously looking at taking it into somewhere to get it fitted, but wondered if there's little adjustments I could be making to make it more comfortable in the meantime. Or is it just 5 years of riding flat bars with an overhand grip means I have to adapt...?

Otherwise everything feels very comfortable to the point where I actually felt refreshed coming off it rather than puggled like with my old Sirrus, but I'm sure that's just the placebo effect!

cougie

Couple of things to try :

1. Raise stem - is it too low and you're putting too much weight on the bars.
2. Get mitts - they're padded
3. Rotate bars so the levers are higher up - should have similar effect to point 1.

dUNC

Thanks Cougie.

1. How do I do that, do I put additional spacers in? Alternatively, could it be that my saddle is too high? Looking at this http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/fitting.htm I think the saddle is right (it feels right anyway) and the heel is just touching the pedal as it suggests, so it's certainly not too low.

2. I've got some already. Thinking about it, I got a similar pain towards the end of a ride on my old flat bar, but here it develops within minutes of getting on.

3. I've tried that. At first they were far too far down and felt like I was over reaching, pulled them up and that was more comfortable but too much (to the point that the drops were almost pointing at the ground so I've settled with a slightly nose-up rotation which seems like it should be comfortable (the reach feels right, the hands fall naturally in a position I like, other than the sore ruddy thumb!).

Twilheimer

Make sure that the bars are exactly level, then make sure that the hoods follow on from the bars directly, i.e. so you dont have a V shape from the side, I had a similar problem and a mechanic showed me that my bars werent set up properly! I've also got some Pro Lite abductor bars, they're designed to relive pressure, they're excellent.

Mitts definately help, but most important is to make sure youre not too stretched out, and the bars are straight with the hoods!

dUNC

I've got my bars set-up so that the hoods are higher at the front - pretty much like in the PX product shot (but maybe inclined slightly more so the bar is more horizontal):
Are you saying that I actually want to tilt them down so that the hoods are pretty much pointing forward? Actually am I misunderstanding cos then behind the bars would actually be pointing down (i.e. the bar then hood doesn't run in a straight line, the hoods curve up)? :?

Been doing more reading to better understand if I'm over stretching, but I'm pretty sure I'm not, as riding right on the hoods I still have flex in my elbows, and can actually bend them to get lower (so my forearms are parallel-ish with the bars) - does that sound right? I'm hesitant on going onto the drops, but I think/hope that's because I feel less natural (coming from flats, and WTF the brakes are miles away then?! That's going to take some getting used to! ) rather than a stretching issue as I can go on them quite happily, though it feels like my knees aren't a million miles away from my arms but again that could be subjective!

vorsprung

One other suggestion.

This is not facetious btw

Try pedalling harder

On the bike, the weight is spread between the contact points of the feet, the backside and the hands. If you press harder on the pedals then more weight goes there instead of on the hands

dUNC

Thanks. You may not be wrong, as for the second half of my 17 mile commute (flatter and faster) the pain improved to the point where I almost forgot about it when I stopped.

Would that be equivalent to moving the saddle backwards (not that I'm trying to get out of working harder )? I noted that the seat seems quite far forward (to the point my saddlebag only just fits underneath) but haven't though to tinker with that. In fact, I figured - perhaps in a back-to-front way - that moving the seat back would require me to lean forward more and put more weight on my hands, but it may actually distribute the weight backwards instead?

vorsprung

dUNC wrote:

Thanks. You may not be wrong, as for the second half of my 17 mile commute (flatter and faster) the pain improved to the point where I almost forgot about it when I stopped.

Would that be equivalent to moving the saddle backwards (not that I'm trying to get out of working harder )? I noted that the seat seems quite far forward (to the point my saddlebag only just fits underneath) but haven't though to tinker with that. In fact, I figured - perhaps in a back-to-front way - that moving the seat back would require me to lean forward more and put more weight on my hands, but it may actually distribute the weight backwards instead?

My experience is the opposite of this

On bikes with a shorter top tube ( distance from saddle to bars ) the seating position is more upright. This causes more weight to go to the backside

Moving the seat back would increase this distance.

You might like to try it though, just to see how it works for you

dUNC

That was my thinking also. But referring back to this article with respect to seat position http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/fitting.htm (and a few others I've read) it sounds like fore-aft seat position will affect the amount of weight on the hands.

I don't think that disagrees with what you say however. With a shorter top tube, you're leaning forward less, so you don't need to move the saddle position back to balance you. But with a longer top tube, if you don't have an aft seat position, you're basically just bending at the waist and putting pressure on your hands. To counter balance you would move the seat back to move the weight from the front towards, ideally, the pedals. I agree it seems counter-intuitive but wonder if there's something in it?

I'll have a play and see if helps. Failing that I'll pedal harder!