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Since riding my road bike more regularly over the past few months I've been getting some pretty bad wrist pain on one side. I think riding on the hoods is making it worse as it tends to not hurt if I keep my hands on the flat section of the bar. Been thinking about getting a new road/gravel bike soon but now having second thoughts about something with drop bars, unless I can figure out exactly what's causing it. There are a few things I can think of:
- bike may be too big/long for me, thus putting more weight on the hands/wrists? Also because of this I sometimes hold just before the hoods rather than on them.
- the bikes a singlespeed so it has smaller Tektro hoods than something with gears, maybe less support here
- 28c tyres at higher pressures coupled with rough country roads may not be helping
Now I look at it, it's probably the first one isn't it? I guess I could try a shorter stem first.
Have you been waving too much at other cyclists?
Have you tried rotating the bar a fraction up, or tweaking the lever position, so the hoods have a slight angle heading upwards away from you when sat on bike?
I initially thought the GRX400 brifter hoods on my ebike were less comfy than the BRS505 brifters on my road bike, but a slight bit of extra rotation on the bars through the stem has made things much better for me.
Seriously consider a bike fit.
I'm a lifelong bike rider and tinkerer. One of my bikes has been giving me shoulder pain and knee pain on and after every decent length ride.
I caved in to the cost of a bike fit a few weeks back. A dozen small interconnected adjustments later I've got a bike that properly fits. The knee and shoulder pain is gone and the power and comfort is up.
I thought I knew how to set up my bikes but this one bike despite being the right size had always been "wrong" and in ways that googling was leading me away from the right answers. Never had issues on an MTB with setup like I did with this (drop bar) bike.
If you're in Hampshire happy to share details of who I used. I think he even does something that helps you find/choose the right bike.
Good advice above about rotating the bars upwards a bit, that decreases the reach a bit. If you feel more comfortable holding the start of the hoods that's usually a sign it's too long a reach so def worth trying a shorter stem (if you don't want to try a bike fit first and rotating the bars doesn't help). How long is your current stem? Go too short and you might make the handling twitchy but depends a bit on the frame geometry and your own preference (70mm shouldn't generally be an issue though and some people are fine with shorter). If the bar top position is fine and you don't want to reduce that you can also get shorter reach drops on bars but that's obviously more faff to swap out.
Are you rolling your wrists inwards? That's usually a sign the bars might be too wide for you and puts additional strain on the wrists.
TBH, you should have less wrist pain on a road bike as you have more positions. You really shouldn't be 'gripping' the bars much on a road bike, just resting them on the hoods or tops.
I used to get this, my initial suggestion was going to be that it was just 'growing pains' as you get used to a different position, not sure how much you've stepped up your time on the road bike?
That said, I've gradually been rotating my hoods inwards, aero style, rather than having them parallel and straight forward. This seems to promote a more relaxed and natural hand position and also makes it easier to rest more of your wrist and side of your hand on the tops of the bars. Finally it prevents the sort of hands-bent-back, wrists inboard of the hoods position that I sometimes used to adopt, maybe because bars were too wide or hoods too far apart.
It can be hard to diagnose exactly the problem as there are a few degrees of freedom to investigate. A good place to start would be sitting in your normal position and looking at the position of your wrist. A neutral position will be a reasonably straight line along the back of your hand up your forearm. You should then be able to figure out roughly where your ideal hand position should be and if you’re lucky you might be able to get it by just moving the shifters a bit. It then gets more expensive as you go from stem to bars to frame.
It sounds counter intuitive, but have you tried consciously leaning forward more onto the bars? Focus on bending your elbows and rotating them in. Doing that puts more weight on your hands on average, but you're not transmitting all the shock and vibration. Also look at core (and glute) strength. Pedaling is 2 big muscles, quads pulling your leg straight at the knee, and glutes pulling is straight at your hip. As muscles are strongest at their most contracted the tendency is to want to sit upright to give weak glutes a fighting chance which also means they need to do less work holding your torso up. So if they're weak you get a cascade of of not being able to hold an 'aggressive' riding position, so your arms are straighter, which means more shock, and your arms are having to work harder to hold your upper body up.
So on the bike, focus on adapting to a more aggressive position, off the bike add some deadlifts and glute kickbacks to your gym routine. and Planks, but really focus on squeezing your glutes to make use of them in stabilizing your pelvis, not just relying on your anterior muscles to keep you from collapsing.
Also because of this I sometimes hold just before the hoods rather than on them.
- the bikes a singlespeed so it has smaller Tektro hoods than something with gears, maybe less support here
Depends which model they are, there are cheap and premium versions, and long and short options. The short version is a huge departure if you're used to the mahoosive size of modern bifters. They're even smaller than levers of 20 years ago. And the cheaper version is also more rounded/narrow (and harder rubber / plastic). You kind of get used to them after a while though so I don't think it's necessarily that.
- 28c tyres at higher pressures coupled with rough country roads may not be helping
Yep, drop them to 70-75psi at the absolute max.
Pressure x area = force, so pumping up big tyres is actually less comfortable than the same pressures in 23's!
Good advice above about rotating the bars upwards a bit,
+1, although I think the reason it works is you don't have to grip to stop your hands moving forwards so you relax more.
And if all else fails, new handlebars. There's hundreds to choose from and they all have subtly different shapes, diameters and stiffness. Or at least try new tape, After a lot of faff and expense I've concluded there's not a lot wrong with good old fashioned EVA/Cork blends. I've just bought a colorful stockpile from Sella Italia stuff banana industries for ~£5 a pack.
Thanks for all the replies, lots to try! It's definitely the bike causing the pain though, I've had a week or so off it due to busy work schedule, had a ride last night and the pain has come back.
I'll try the bar roll first, it does feel like they're pointing down a bit. The stem is 110mm so I could probably go down to 90 as I had on my previous bike without it feeling too twitchy. Could definitely do with new bar tape too, this stuff came used with the bike and feels quite thin, and the urban camo pattern is ugly!
I noticed last night that this seems to be how I'm naturally gripping the bars most of the time (probably as a result of a too-long reach) which might not be helping, looks a bit awkward!
That said, I've gradually been rotating my hoods inwards, aero style, rather than having them parallel and straight forward
I have a sore right wrist and doing this definitely helps. I've only rotated the one hand though, to make sure the bike has best comedy potential
... but yeah, holding the bars there does suggest too stretched out
I'd be thinking shorter stem and get hands on hoods further forward from that pic. You wrists and arms are all inline and not relaxed.
Yeah, that looks uncomfortable - your forearm/elbow looks like they could be pretty straight, and you're putting weight on a quite rigid spot - the top-to-shifter transition, or the shifter body (which is hard). It's totally a place I'll put my hand from time to time, but naturally, the web of my thumb lands on that nice rubber bump on the hood. (Also makes covering the brakes easier).
90 stem is a cheap way to explore shortening the reach and won't impact the handling too much at all.
Could definitely do with new bar tape too, this stuff came used with the bike and feels quite thin, and the urban camo pattern is ugly!
I think this should be the last thing you try, I've been chopping and changing a lot of stuff in relation to hand and arm discomfort on the gravel bike, and the super cushy Enve bar tape PLUS Fizik gel pads underneath has made surprisingly little difference.
Learning to grip less hard (I found visualising the hoods as two ripe bananas and adjusting grip and weight accordingly really helped) and adjusting saddle fore/aft and angle made a bigger difference. Moving saddle back (within the limits of your flexibility) and tilting it nose up helped me, although obviously there is a limit to how far you can go.
There is a sweetspot of fore/aft and nose up which 'cradles' your undercarriage without pressure on the soft bits, whilst also redistributing your weight more towards the rear of the bike. It's sort of a literal balancing act. I can easily do a superman impression while sat down and pedalling now without requiring crazy core strength.
Have you tried rotating the bar a fraction upStill see people quoting the old "bottoms of the drops parallel to the floor."
Worked well when the tops of your bars were only half an inch or so below your saddle and you spent ~50% of your ride on the drops.
Last pro fit i had the starting point was to point the bottom section of the drops somewhere near your rear axle. Works much better with modern frame geo, integrated shifters and shallow drops.
I didn't even think about moving the seat back and angled, I thought it'd just make the reach issue worse but can see how that'd take some weight off the arms too.
Re bike fits, all the places I've found locally seem to be for fine tuning your existing bike. I think what I'd prefer is a way of finding the ideal frame geometry measurements since at 5'8" I usually sit between a small and medium on most height charts, having the frame measurements would be more helpful before buying a bike I think. So if there's someone that can do that I'd be happy to pay for a fit.
I didn't even think about moving the seat back and angled, I thought it'd just make the reach issue worse but can see how that'd take some weight off the arms too.
Yep, it's trial and error unfortunately, moving the saddle forward can reduce reach but ALSO place more weight on your bars. I'd tried some quite drastic positions sliding saddle right back AND tilting nose up, obviously my low back hated it but arms loved it! 😀
Re bike fits, all the places I've found locally seem to be for fine tuning your existing bike. I think what I'd prefer is a way of finding the ideal frame geometry measurements since at 5'8" I usually sit between a small and medium on most height charts, having the frame measurements would be more helpful before buying a bike I think. So if there's someone that can do that I'd be happy to pay for a fit.
A bike fit will start with your existing bike, and look at tuning it yes, but it's tuning it to those numbers - you should end up with a set of dimensions you can use elsewhere. Although every bike has its nuances, knowing things like the ETT your need, the saddle-BB distance, etc, are all useful, and mean you can set up another bike to match. Some places do that fit on your actual bike, others will use a fitting jig (just because it's easier to set up) - the latter might give you more confidence, if you're not convinced by the current bike.
Part of the fit issue is I'm not even 100% sure what year or size my frame is, it was sold as a 54cm (which I've had in the past) but measuring it up against the incomplete geo charts online it seems closer to a 56.
Shorter stem based on that picture. Don't rotate the bars to correct for reach. I like to slide the shifters up slightly for a nice flat platform to rest on, but I think you are over-reaching and that puts more strain on on the wrist.
If you want rotated inwards shifters for aeroz, you need some narrower bars. I have x-wing and they are very good and comfortable. But not cheap!