Bought a new road bike recently and pretty pleased with it so far BUT it seems to be giving me a few niggling aches and pains such as tingling in my right hand, sore wrist (due to a buggered scaphoid but not a problem on the mountain bike). Feet hurt a bit too.

Am I normal? Will these niggles disappear as I get used to riding a ghey bike? Do I need to change everything? Who will add the MTFU tag?

Any advice/experiences appreciated!

SC

hth

That's better already.

Stuartie, I used to get tingling in my fingers, so bad in fact I couldnt grasp a door handle firmly enough to turn it. As a temporary measure try rotating the bars upwards a little, so you have less pressure on the hoods. If it works move the levers up a bit.

doesn't sound right to me

are your bars at the right height, stem right length, shoes on too tight?

Do you have a history of neck/shoulder problems?
Could be just the low front end forcing you to strain to keep your head up, which in turn can result in tingling fingers.
Usually something you'lll get used to.
Are your shoes new road specific? If they are then they will be much stiffer than mtb ones. You'll get used to that too!
Not much help really, sorry.

Just play with the position. The rigth position is the one that works for you.

and…..a bigger front tyre helped my mate who has issues with his hands caused by vibration

Not sure about bars and stem.

There is a stack of spacers under the bar which sets them quite high but it feels quite comfortable otherwise. I've tried rotating the bars up a bit but I think I went a bit too far since it made things worse.

Foot pain could be due to cleats being in the wrong position or the totally rigid carbon soles.

I rarely have problems getting an mtb set up comfortably but they are a lot more forgiving.

Shoes – what pedals are you using?

Bars – as said above, you might need to experiment a bit. Folk might laugh at me for it, but I put gel under my bar tape for added comfort.

You've done one thing right ie. NOT posting a pic of the bike like I did with 'position' problems

Double wrap of bar tape and moving the hoods up sorted it along with a frame that actually fitted me 😳

Folk might laugh at me for it, but I put gel under my bar tape for added comfort.

+1 especially if you have shovel sized hands. Bar Phat or some such thing.

Sidi shoes and Look pedals. Always use Time pedals on MTB so might try a pair on the road bike.

Gel under bar tape? Where from?

stuartie_c – Member
Gel under bar tape? Where from?

Tsk! Tsk!

Worth experimenting with bar/hood position first as you'll have to re-wrap the bars.

Make sure you get the long gel 😉

http://road.cc/content/review/3828-specialized-bar-phat-bar-tape

McM,

despite being a 10 stone weakling, I do have biggish hands so might try the gel thing.

The climb from Kirkcaldy to teh Col du Mosmorran was giving me gip yesterday – shite road surface in places.

Tsk! Tsk!

Dur! Of course.

Col du Mosmorran

😀

You wont be in a hurry to try L'Alpe de Kinghorn Loch then

Check the saddle too.

Too far back and tipped down and you end up putting more weight on the bars.

If you want a comfy combo, I found that Charge bar tape and gel inserts (both can be found on Wiggle) work a treat. I did 1000 miles over a fortnight in 2nd half of July with no achey hands.

You wont be in a hurry to try L'Alpe de Kinghorn Loch then

or the Chapelberg (turn right at the top for Fife's only proper* switchback).

*IMHO

As others have said you're probably putting too much weight on your hands. Tilting the saddle so that it's a little nose up helped me as did gel under the bar tape – I used the Fizik product. But these only treat the symptoms not the cause, work on your 'core strength' so that you're not putting your weight on your arms. Look at it as resting on the bars rather than leaning on them.

get fitted properly (including foodbeds/cleats vargus/valrus angle).

i can't see how a bit of gel under the bartape is going to solve things if your position is wrong.

Stuartie_c…I'm by no means an expert, but I am listed on the BC website as a coach and I've worked in various bike shops (a couple of years back now, mind) so I like to think I have a reasonable idea of what I'm doing.

Anyway, mostly the problem I have giving advice on here is that without actually seeing someone ride a bike it's not so easy to really diagnose the problem. That said, I live just on the south side of the Forth so if you like, I can, for once, RV with you somewhere and offer a few thoughts on your position/set up and hopefully help you find a less painful set-up!

Normally it's proper fitting that is the answer. You can google and do it yourself or pay someone to help. Contact points are much more important on the road as your position is more static than on a mtb and less upright.

Other than that you could mtfu, cadel evans road the tour with a broken elbow, he didn't winge about tingling hands 😉

You could always take a photo of yourself sat on the bike in a typical riding position and have people critique your bike fit. Feel free to pixellate your face if you are shy, for that 'Crimewatch' look. This being STW, I would imagine some form of ribbing would be unavoidable though.

Other than that you could mtfu, cadel evans road the tour with a broken elbow, he didn't winge about tingling hands

To be fair the Tour doesnt include Le Col du Mossmorran.

get the bike fitted. it is massively important ime. made all my knee pain go away.

i can recommend a good guy in Southampton if that's any good to you 😉

could just be beacuase you not used to the position, i used to have neck and back pain from being used to being more upright on my mtb and the doing more roda helped and now it dosent really effect me

Brilliant advice guys – thanks to all!

roadie_in_denial – I will take you up on your offer; just about to email you.

I get numb hands on the roadbike too, **** all to do with position but road buzz through the front end a 25c front tyre at slightly lower pressure helped quite a bit

Incidentally, are road bikes generally less forgiving of set-up errors than mtbs?

I find it pretty easy to get a mountain bike set up to fit me without really thinking about it too much or getting all scientific on its ass.

Road bikes tend to be much harder to get right. You tend to stay in the smae position for longer so any problems quicky become apparent.

I know how to set-up a roadbike perfectly well but actually set my MTBs up far more precicely than my roadbikes and unless your a sat down all the time mincer a bike set-up expert couldn't get it right for you anyway.