Making Bars Higher to Lessen Elbow Pain

sam_m

As per the title really - after initially feeling some stiffness in my hands and wrists when I first got my bike, this soon disappeared, but I still get really stiff elbows after a couple of hours riding.

Is making the bars higher likely to help with this? The only reason I ask is that the champion who wired up the brakes last kept the cabling so short that I can't simply try flipping the stem without re-doing all the brake cables. Obviously I don't want to bother doing all that if it's not going to help.

Then again, maybe my elbows are just taking a little longer to adjust than the rest of my arms, and will be fine in a week or two.

Thoughts?

ijh66

Hi Sam , How do you normally ride, is it with your hands on top of the brake levers or lower, if it's lower try them on top of the levers now and againto vary your position, if you already do this then it's worth a few quid for new cables to flip your stem, I'm no expert but this is what I would try as it would cost very little, hope I've been of some help I'm new to road bikes to but been riding mtbs for the last 10 yrs,Ian

Monty Dog

Sore elbows suggests you''re riding with arms straight / locked i.e. over-reaching? If your cables are too short to fit spacers / flip stem, then you could try fitting a shorter stem.

mattward1979

+1 for Monty.. I had a similar problem with my 61cm Spesh Allez. My arms were out straight and this gave me severe pain in my hands and forearms.

Now on my 58cm Raleigh Avanti, and the problem went away almost immediately.

Id say shorter stem or if your bike fit can accomodate it, moving the saddle forward a tad could help.

sam_m

I don't lock my elbows, but they do tend to stay pretty much in the same position for most of the time (not quite on the hoods) - it may just be a case of them adjusting, but I also think I might be over-reaching a bit.

I think I'll try re-cabling the brakes and flipping the stem, as that should give me quite a bit of rise compared with how it is now. It is a long stem though, so I'll keep a shorter stem in mind if the extra height doesn't help.

Lady Venom

Not on the hoodz suggests stem too long. I'd go try a shorter one for sure before fiddling height.

Monty Dog

Yup, the fact that you're not comfortable on the hoods suggests that you need to shorten your reach - probably a shorter stem. FWIW moving the saddle forward probably isn't an ideal move - saddle setback is determined by your femur length and could impact on your pedal stroke. A simple bike fit for £25 could easily be recouped in terms of comfort and not buying multiple stems etc .