Numb Hands!

alwaystoohot

I did my first bike race last weekend, 45kms. I previously did a couple of 40km training rides and including the race, I've started to develop tingly/numb fingers.

I have flat bars am 6'7" and weigh 17 stone. I have 25mm race tyres at 100lb pressure. Is it vibration coming from having too hard tyres, am I pressing down too hard on the flat bars?? or....? Bike set up is at max size obviously. Maybe the seat angle is putting too much pressure on my wrists?

Thoughts please wise ones.

Cheers
Richard

Duffer65

I use to get numb hands when I had a flat bar bike. Do you wear gloves? Have you tried Ergon grips? Do you have bar ends? Do you grip the bars too tightly? Using bar ends gives you another position for your hands to grip the bars. With flat bars you do tend to stay in the same grip position for longer periods. Try any or all of these and see if you still suffer from numb hands.

http://www.ergon-bike.com/gb/en/home

ollyridesfirst

as above....try some gel gloves (i use altura pro gels) and try changing position of your hands every so often to keep the blood flowing. Could also try opening and closing your fists (like when giving blood) to keep the flow going.

Also get your setup checked and make sure you're not too far away from the bars causing you to over-lean on your wrists

alwaystoohot

Thanks the food ideas guys. I wear padded gloves but not gel - maybe I do grip the bars too tight, will loosen off and see what happens - and bar ends also a good idea. Thanks the pointers, lets see what happens.

MichaelW

You may need some alternate grip positions.
Bar ends are the usual but also consider clip-on aerobars. Triathletes use them low down for aerodynamics but many tourists use them just for more comfortable positions.