[Closed] Hand numbing and hand positioning help!!

Have you tried some gloves with decent gel pads? Surprising the difference it can make. That or maybe going for a slightly more upright position so you're not weighting your hands as much. May be worth trying to make a point of shifting position slightly on a regular basis just to stretch out/help bloodflow/etc.

Yes currently using Specialized gel gloves, gel handlebar tape and regularly change hand positions and shake out hands and lower arms frequently but only short lived.

How about something like a Jones bar? Would give you a few different hand positions and with some extra taping you could probably rest your forearms on them too.

How about slide your seat back more. This will slacken your seat angle and take more pressure off your hands.

What do you think caused your tumor?

Raise thew bars to take the weight off your hands. top of the drops level with the seat or a bit higher

Cheers, never thought about the Jones bar, not keen on the look and I do enjoy riding in the drops occasionally. Seat is pushed as far back as possible and bars level with seat. No idea as to cause of tumour but it’s affecting kidney function and adrenal insufficiency result is low potassium. If really low causes cramping and spasms and in extreme case( thankfully just the once a potassium drip in hospital 🙁). Consultant is a roadie and he suggested using the aerobars to take pressure off the hands and wrists and improve blood flow. So hence the initial post regarding aerobars

tri-bars (assuming thats what he means) would work, but only on road and certainly not if there's a lot of stop/start or general manoeuvring involved. Raising the bars increasingly higher would be my approach to start with

Get a bike proper bike fit done. Trust me, I know from experience that trying to sort things yourself is a false economy. I could of saved hundreds of pounds if I had just got a bike fit done in the first place. Instead I tried to fix problems myself, with different types of saddles and shoes.

Double wrap the bar tape?
Bigger tyres?
Run the tyres tubeless with the pressure as low as you dare? Or lower?

Hi fudge, sorry to hear that but glad you are managing it. Good luck

Ive just finished 2 days road riding, 15 hours a day. My right hand still has a bit of numbness and a few blisters.

I run double bar tape across the top to give more padding and wear gloves.

My friend who normally has hand issues on big rides was using a new pair of aero bars, flat wide tops. He had only bar taped the bottom half, the top half was bare carbon. He didn't have any hand problems at all. He said they were great, expensive but great.

Damascus do you know the brand of the bars?

Bars higher and closer will take weight off the hands. That said 3T aeronova road bars have lovely flat tops that allow resting of the palms in comfort. I also have some 3T clip on tri bars which fit and work well. I’d supplement with gelovations stick on small pads for really soft cushioning.

The other easy fix is bigger tyres, but you really want weight off your hands. I don’t know what groupset you run, but you can always include a bar end brake lever TT style in the end of the clip on for control. I’d run it to the back brake, personally for speed modulation. I’m guessing gravel <> technical.

Ps I run the alloy aeronovas. They come in shallow drop. Carbon was a bit to steep for my fixed TT bike. There is not a huge difference between carbon and alloy, but you may get a little extra cushioning from carbon. At 2x the price.

So here’s where I’m at: Bike fit done when got the Salsa Vaya built up

700cx32 Tubeless tyres
Double taped bars
Specialized Gel gloves
Bars level with saddle
Saddle pushed back

Still numb hands so can someone please recommend a set it Tri bars with foldable pads so I can still ride on top of the drops when desired

Had your hands recovered from when you last rode the bike? No good trying a new setup until that's happened. It took me 18 months to get my setup sorted with a month to six weeks of shorter rides between the long (12hr+) rids that caused the numbness.

What's your saddle angle like? That can have a big effect on where your weight is.

If you go the raising-the-bars route, consider experimenting with an adjustable stem so you can play around with different angles/heights. They're an aesthetic abomination, but work fine if you're trying to dial in a new bar position, and don't cost much.

Ah good point Montgomery I might just try a stem with more angle, saddle is virtually flat.

Tbh, I’d consider repeating the bike fit.

Conventional thought says with the problem you’re having that you have too much weight on your hands hence various suggestions above. Pretty much, something has changed since the bike fit. Assuming the tumour/potassium situation is new since the bike fit maybe you either can’t tolerate the position you were fitted for or your seated position has altered due to discomfort.

As above, you could easily spend a lot of time and money trying to busk this one out.

Will organise another bike fit before wasting cash, but I’ve had the tumour before the bike fit and have had the hand issues over the last few years while I Mountain biked. Lately I’ve stopped mountain biking and moved to gravel/road biking and it’s become more frequent

So had the bike fit, all good , saddle angle is fine. But still getting numbness to the hands, I appreciate this is likely to be due to the kidney tumour but as a last resort going to try a set of tri bars but no idea about them.
Recommendations as to shape of extensions and brand welcome.

I had 2 'professional' bike fits using Retul. One was with a bike shop mechanic who had done a 2 day course, the other a sports scientist who's main knowledge was biomechanics (free full fit with a bike purchase).

Both in retrospect were terrible for their own reasons (first cleats all over the place and second was very efficient for pedalling but mega long and high, pushing pressure back onto lower spine). Both had saddle height within 2mm but that is a by product of computer saying get close to X degrees.

I tweaked fit by quite a lot over 6 months and got far closer to comfort, mainly by more saddle setback, lowering bars and shortening reach.

2 years on went for a third bike fit with a physio who assessed me and said I was the main issue. Back was overcompensating for poor core and glute activation, she set me a series of exercises and sent me on my way.
10 weeks later I pop back for a checkup with her. She tweaks my position by dropping saddle 5mm and suggesting lengthening the stem to 110mm and lowering the front 10-20mm in 5mm steps. I had the position basically right but my mucked up body meant nothing would really work.
Total cost was less than half a retail fit and I felt better both on and off the bike.

I can't help but recommend someone with hand problems going to a physio. It doesn't have to be a 'pro' bike fitter but that would be useful.

Have you tried the Steve Hogg test of being able to lift your hands off bars whilst pedalling at your 20 minute pace? (Do it on a trainer on flat ground). If you fall forwards no amount of tweaking setup on front end is going to cure it. Would then be a case of looking at back end of bike and your strength.

Reasonably priced tri bars, if you wanted to try them out...

As an aside, I see eBay has Chinese 'Hylix' copies of those Aeronova bars, very tempting at £70 after Royal Mail handling charges etc...

Bike fit sorted it for me.

If your seat position is not correct you will weight the bars too much.

I used to get mild to moderate hand numbness, i changed my stem from 110mm to 65mm, it’s also angled up a little more, but not mage amount,
It’s been a revelation for me.
I still get numbness, but only after a couple of hours, previously it would start by the time i had reached the end of the street.
It’s really frustrating eh.

Absolutely but to compound things for me the medical condition plays it’s pa with the lower level of potassium

So 2 weeks on and after several days trying these out I can say that SO FAR🤞my hand numbing has lessened, not saying it’s the complete solution but with the varied hand positions they help. Have done several long rides and a definite improvement, great that they flip up as I love riding on the tops also.
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It may be no use to you, but I suffered pins & needles in my arms and hands too, and a physio spotted the problem just watching me walking into his office, a slouch had developed into stiff vertebrae in the neck. Two manipulations (the 2nd of which freed them, made my arms feel like they were on fire, and nearly had me in tears), and simple exercises for the neck had me sorted in a matter of weeks.May be worth looking into.

@coatsey cheers but I know the cause it’s a kidney tumour, causing low potassium which I’m medicated for but the numbness is exacerbated by pressure riding with weight on wrists and hands. So despite trying every avenue suggested by the ever helpful stw people above this seemed a good option. So far with a few rides it seems to be working with the variety of hand positions on the drop bars I can take the weight off my hands completely. The option to flip them up is great and the carbon exiting are super comfy. Just think I need a slightly longer saddle?

@fudge9202 do you have a link to those tri bars? Can they be raised up with spacers?

@damascus is it the flip up part?

@damascus here’s the link to the flip clip part made by 3T
https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/mobile/3t-flip-clip-on-team/rp-prod151611?gs=1&sku=sku552678&pgrid=60711843258&ptaid=pla-696197930817&utm_source=google&utm_term=&utm_campaign=PLA+All+Products&utm_medium=base&utm_content=mkwid%7CsO3C3CEMk_dm%7Cpcrid%7C309840119912%7Cpkw%7C%7Cpmt%7C%7Cprd%7C552678UK&gclid=CjwKCAjwsIbpBRBNEiwAZF8-z9ZooxBklht07e6driZ1Tvq2Z9HDjmGi8j5vBbC2cNTWgJr9Ku9pXxoCRA4QAvD_BwE

The carbon extensions I bought separately from eBay

I also have found Jones bars and Specialized BG (or cheapo Planet X mitts) really make a difference

I don’t think the Jones bars would look right in my Salsa Vaya

So after thinking these were the solution turns out I’ve something else going on with my adrenal gland and the kidney tumour so definitely a medical issue.

The 3T flip clip pro kit and carbon extensions are now in the classifieds 🙁

Would a steel fork with a little bend help, those straight ones look pretty unforgiving.

@jkomo not sure what would you recommend? I’m hoping an increase in medication to regulate my body loosing potassium so rapidly will help. Could end up considering a different style of bike🙁

Hoping a layback seatpost to push saddle back a bit might help

Make small changes, one at a time. Makes it easier to isolate what really works.

@martymac. That’s the plan. Cheers

First thing I'd consider would be a fatter, softer front tyre if I was trying to get more comfort on the front of my bike.