Discomfort in muscle under the thumb whilst on the hoods...

holiver

Hi Guys,

First the good news - I have not bought a bike yet! Thanks to the kind people at Psyclewerx in Bristol I have been testing what might be my first road bike - a Tifosi CK7 over the past few days. I like the bike and how stiff and efficient it feels riding it, but I get major discomfort in the large muscle under the thumb when riding on the hoods. I will not buy it until I can solve this!

This happens after just a couple of minutes. I have read about carpal tunnel syndrome which I have never had. It seems like there is some kind of pressure point in the muscle under the thumb (perhaps the branch of the median nerve?) that is being activated by it bearing my weight.

I'm not quite sure what the cause of this is, as the bike feels to be the right size (M which gives a 550mm virtual top tube). I have tried with gloves (Endura Single Track), without gloves, with original 120mm stem, with a 110mm stem and with the stem flipped. None of these has helped really.

The bike is equipped with Campagnolo Veloce shifters. Could it be the shape of the hoods? Or the bar shape/width (42cm)? Or the bar tape? The hoods and bar are set to be level with the ground.

I may purchase some new gloves with better padding (Specialized Body Geometry Gel) to see whether they help, but I can't help feel it's a larger problem.

To give more detail I am 181cm (5'11 tall), 76kg and the bike's geometry can be seen below.



Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might be able to get on well with the bike? Or for good gloves/bars/bar tape etc?

Thank you!

smoggysteve

Some people grip the hoods too tight. Try moving hands a bit further back on the frame and rest your hands on but don't grab the bar.

holiver

OK thanks. I have been riding covering the brakes the whole time as it's been on roads with traffic and have perhaps been gripping too tightly. I think I would always want to cover the brakes unless away from traffic.

I'm used to always covering the brakes on my MTB...

smoggysteve

You dont need to move your hands too far away. The longer you ride, the more you find you can anticipate traffic anyway so you dont need your hands on the brake all the time. If its busy roads by all means stay close to the brakes but on open or quieter roads relax your position. moving your hands to different parts of the bar can help against early fatigue in your hands and arms.

Mindermast

I think, there are various reasons for this. I didn't have any trouble for quite a while, but on my way to work and on long tours, it sometimes happens. It seems to be better when I grip the hoods from slightly from the sides. On rough roads it happens more often. Gloves with pads on the sensitive spots make it even worse. Actually, whenever I wear such gloves on the bike, I get pain sooner or later.

One obvious reason is too much weight on the hands. When I started riding a road racer, I had so much weight on my arms, that my arms hurt after a few miles. In the meantime, it is much better, but in theory, there shouldn't be any weight on the arms at all. Not sure, if I can get there...

holiver

Yeah I did seem to have quite a lot of weight on my hands, despite the relatively tall head tube and some spacers under the stem.

I'm quite confused and the shop didn't seem able to suggest anything else. Might a bike fit at somewhere like Bike Science be of use?

holiver

One more thing that may be relevant is that I have fairly small hands...

Mindermast

holiver wrote:

One more thing that may be relevant is that I have fairly small hands...

I don't, but I have similar problems. But it seems, that the position of the hoods is crucial. I got one bike where the hoods are lower (noticed today, therefore I didn't mention it in my previous post), and I have almost no problems on this one. Unfortunately, it is so much work to move the hoods, because you have to remove the bar tape. But it is probably worth the trouble. For fun, I checked a few images from Tour de France, people have quite different hood positions. Common sense should tell us, that the hoods must positioned individually, but whenever I read about it, instructions suggest, that you align the tip of the brake levers with the drops.

suzyb

Mindermast wrote:

I think, there are various reasons for this. I didn't have any trouble for quite a while, but on my way to work and on long tours, it sometimes happens. It seems to be better when I grip the hoods from slightly from the sides. On rough roads it happens more often. Gloves with pads on the sensitive spots make it even worse. Actually, whenever I wear such gloves on the bike, I get pain sooner or later.

I found gloves with pads were what caused the problem for me so I now ride wearing my cheap aldi mitts instead of the more expensive Specialised ones.

cyco2

Ha ray for Aldi!!!

holiver

I popped into Bike Science after hitting the trails this morning to try to get some advice. Had a good chat with Rich who works there. He mentioned the saddle position possibly not being far enough back amongst other things like stack height and reach. Any idea of how to measure these yourself?

They do a 45 min bike sizing consultation thing for 45 quid which seems like it might be worth a shout. They will take measurements and assess flexibility. You can take in the geometries of the different bikes and they will set up a rig to see whether any of the bikes fit or can be made to fit well via small adjustments. Anyone had anything like this done?

Thanks all so far!

Mindermast

Thanks by the way, for this thread! I picked up on researching the reason on my bike and found an improvement: I turned the hoods a bit outside, which shifts the pressure to a different spot under the thumb. This was possible without removing the handlebar tape.

seanoconn

holiver wrote:

Hi Guys,

First the good news - I have not bought a bike yet! Thanks to the kind people at Psyclewerx in Bristol I have been testing what might be my first road bike - a Tifosi CK7 over the past few days. I like the bike and how stiff and efficient it feels riding it, but I get major discomfort in the large muscle under the thumb when riding on the hoods. I will not buy it until I can solve this!

This happens after just a couple of minutes. I have read about carpal tunnel syndrome which I have never had. It seems like there is some kind of pressure point in the muscle under the thumb (perhaps the branch of the median nerve?) that is being activated by it bearing my weight.

I'm not quite sure what the cause of this is, as the bike feels to be the right size (M which gives a 550mm virtual top tube). I have tried with gloves (Endura Single Track), without gloves, with original 120mm stem, with a 110mm stem and with the stem flipped. None of these has helped really.

The bike is equipped with Campagnolo Veloce shifters. Could it be the shape of the hoods? Or the bar shape/width (42cm)? Or the bar tape? The hoods and bar are set to be level with the ground.

I may purchase some new gloves with better padding (Specialized Body Geometry Gel) to see whether they help, but I can't help feel it's a larger problem.

To give more detail I am 181cm (5'11 tall), 76kg and the bike's geometry can be seen below.



Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might be able to get on well with the bike? Or for good gloves/bars/bar tape etc?

Thank you!

Pinarello001 is the forum expert. I'm sure he wouldn't mind a pm

holiver

Thought I would follow up on this with some further info. Had a "sales consultation"at Bike Science which involved getting me into a position on their fitting rig that would give me a 45* back angle working off the geometry of a 55cm Kuota Korsa. Lots of adjustments were made, including moving to 44cm bars, and at the end of the session I was much more comfortable than the start.

They gave me the stack and reach figures that I had ended up with so I have been trawling the internet for suitable frames and then trying to work out the stack and reach figures for those! Luckily someone has created a spreadsheet that seems to be accurate to help:

http://bb2stem.blogspot.co.uk/

The frame that is the best match appears to be a 57cm Kinesis Racelight T2 so I think I will be going down that route instead of the Tifosi.