Pain in hood part of hands, pins & needles in hands

[Sa Calobra]

Ok I know the answer will be bike fit session but I don't have £100 spare at the moment.

I've just started road biking again (I commute 3 miles to work also already).

I descended cragg Vale in Calderdale on Saturday and the hood part of my hands ached like crazy with the front of the bike skipping and hopping around like crazy really denting my confidence.

On the flats my hands were numb and I experienced pins and needles.

What can I do as a opener?

The bike is a cheap 58cm Genesis Equilibrium 10 with Ultegra running gear, I slammed the stem mid ride to try and help too.

I'm 6ft2 with a monkey build.

[TwistingMyMelon]

1. Make sure you aren't placing too much weight on your hands, is your saddle pointed down at front?

2. Buy some decent gloves with thick padding, some gloves have none, others lots

3. Look at fitting some bar tape that will damper vibrations and fit some gel pads underneath

4. Hand strengthening exercises might help, the strength gripper things help, Yoga helped my hand strength increase lots as I did positions to hold all my body weight on my hands

5. Accept that long descents are hard on your hands, I went to Wales yesterday and my shoulders and hands ache more than my legs today from the long downhills.

Hope that helps, when I swapped form MTB to Road bikes years ago, my back twinged like mad at first, it was just my body just getting used to it

[TwilightJohnny]

Can you show us a picure of the bike so we can see how it's set up?

[TwilightJohnny]

Also, if the front of the bike is skipping and hopping around check that the headset isn't loose. This can cause a lot of vibration which won't help at all. Also check the front wheel bearings for play - try to rock the wheel from side to side to see if there's any movement.

Edited by TwilightJohnny on Monday 26th June 20:48

[Sa Calobra]

TwilightJohnny said:

Can you show us a picure of the bike so we can see how it's set up?

Will do tomorrow. On similar short road-link-trail descents on my mountain bike I can ride sat back/hands off the bars compared! It literally terrifies me on the road bike compared

[SteveSteveson]

TwistingMyMelon said:

4. Hand strengthening exercises might help, the strength gripper things help, Yoga helped my hand strength increase lots as I did positions to hold all my body weight on my hands

And core strength. Core strength will help with with lots of stuff.

[TwilightJohnny]

Also, not sure what you mean by this:

Sa Calobra said:

I slammed the stem mid ride to try and help too..

[Sa Calobra]

I had all the spacers under the stem so I swapped the spacers to drop the stem flat/flush to the headset.

[TwilightJohnny]

That would probably make the numbness worse if it's caused by too much weight on your hands and forearms..

[JustinF]

how firmly do you grip the bars? steering is mostly done with your knees and hips allowing you to let the front end float in a loose grip 90% of the time.

[Sa Calobra]

Ah I'm gripping quite a bit ...

[Black can man]

I'm 6'1 & on all of my bikes i have put a shorter stem of 100mm on all of them i found that this helped when i kept getting Pins & needles.


I only seem to suffer with it now is when the surface of the road is bobbly when i'm going to fast.

[bigdom]

Sa Calobra said:

I had all the spacers under the stem so I swapped the spacers to drop the stem flat/flush to the headset.

Put them all back in, make sure the hoods are in the correct location and move the saddle forward 5mm. If that doesn't help, you may as already suggested, require a shorter stem.

https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com/bikefit/2011/...

[Matt_N]

You shouldn't be moving the saddle fore or aft to take account of reach issues, it's to set up your knee over pedal position, if you are comfortable in regards to legs / knees then leave the saddle as is.

[Sa Calobra]

Matt_N said:

You shouldn't be moving the saddle fore or aft to take account of reach issues, it's to set up your knee over pedal position, if you are comfortable in regards to legs / knees then leave the saddle as is.

I've had the saddle height spot on to stop hip rotation etc but I noticed the nose of the saddle was tipping down slightly. I'm not entirely happy with the saddle. It's one I found in the shed that I'd binned off the mtb; A WTB Thinline Silverado. So that's one area to sort too. I've measured the stem, it's only a 100mm!

I'll take a pic and post.

Before measuring the stem I assumed it'd probably be a 120.

Edited by Sa Calobra on Tuesday 27th June 14:42

[TheInternet]

Make sure your tyre pressures aren't too high either. Mine were excessive when starting out on road bikes, like most seem to.

[Sa Calobra]

TheInternet said:

Make sure your tyre pressures aren't too high either. Mine were excessive when starting out on road bikes, like most seem to.

I'm running min 90-100. Tyres are Vittoria Open Pave CG 27-622

[Sa Calobra]

Interesting:

If your rear wheel is carrying 44kg and your front 36kg (a 55:45 weight distribution) and you’re running 25mm tyres, then reading from the graph tells you that you want about 90psi in the rear tyre and 70psi in the front.

http://road.cc/content/feature/180830-how-choose-y...

[HoHoHo]

Sa Calobra said:

Interesting:

If your rear wheel is carrying 44kg and your front 36kg (a 55:45 weight distribution) and you’re running 25mm tyres, then reading from the graph tells you that you want about 90psi in the rear tyre and 70psi in the front.

http://road.cc/content/feature/180830-how-choose-y...

Interesting link, thanks

I also suffer from time-to-time from pins and needles in my hands and have my pressures up to 100psi on both front and back..........

I'm going to have a play and hope it helps!