Sore neck after 1st 40 miler

chrisaonabike

I went out on a nice flat route yesterday and did a shade over 40 miles - for the first time.

My legs were fine at the end, but the base of my neck was quite sore - a sharpish pain which went away with ibuprofen and is fine today.

I imagine it was due to my head position - neck bent up a bit - for most of the ride, although I didn't spend much time on the drops.

Is this common? Does it go away in time?

SaintMark

I used to get a similar neck and shoulder pain on longer rides when I started road riding not long ago. I re-visited my set up and decided to change my stem for a shorter one and I've been fine ever since, bike is comfy and I can ride all day. I borrowed a stem from another bike to try different lengths before I bought one, and finally went from a 130mm stem to 100mm which I much prefer.

grazza_e

Agree per saintmark it could be bike fit.

I have also had that pain, albeit I tended to get it more often on a turbo trainer. I realized it was more about being stuck in a very fixed position. I found moving your hands about a bit to change position, i.e. from bars to hoods to drops, getting out of saddle every now and then helps a lot. I generally find if I have a lot of weight on my hands / wrists (either due to poor bike fit, or poor core strength meaning i'm leaning on my hands) the pain comes back.

Hope helps.

peat

I was thinking of doing the same (shorter stem). Did 65 miles yesterday and had to keep looking at my feet to relieve my neck towards the end.

chrisaonabike

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I already have a 100mm stem - it says E100 on the side, and the distance from the middle of the allen bolt on the top of headset to the back of the gap where the stem attaches to the handlebar is pretty much bang on 100mm.

From what I read, shorter stems make for twitchier control - not sure I'm ready for that yet.

I could move the saddle forward a few mm - would that have a similar effect to shortening the stem?

DavidJB

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I already have a 100mm stem - it says E100 on the side, and the distance from the middle of the allen bolt on the top of headset to the back of the gap where the stem attaches to the handlebar is pretty much bang on 100mm.

From what I read, shorter stems make for twitchier control - not sure I'm ready for that yet.

I could move the saddle forward a few mm - would that have a similar effect to shortening the stem?

Make sure you sit up and move your neck from side to side every now and then, helps.

uberkraaft

Remind yourself to relax, loosen your grip on the bars ... if your mindful, it'll become second nature

sadlybiggins

I used to get this but it went away reasonably quickly as I got more used to riding longer distances. As others have said, it could also be set-up. One other possibility is if you have a peak on your helmet. If so, take this off as it forces you to bend your neck up to see the road properly.

luv2ride

I had this a couple of weekends ago. In the end I put it down to wearing a cycling cap under my helmet because of the low winter sun. The brim meant had to elevate my head ever so slightly to see properly - had a really sore neck and shoulders afterwards. Wore a cap with a shorter brim on two long rides this weekend, no neck problems at all...