I've just started riding this year, and last weekend was my first two day outing to what I suppose is a trail centre. Steep (for me) rocky descents all day long.

Great time, but after a few runs my hands were just killing me. Particularly the muscles below the thumb. I thought it was just because I tend to grip the bar like I'm hanging on for dear life (which most of the time I am), and dragging my brakes A LOT. And maybe partly because my grips are extraordinarily thick and hard. But my more experienced buddies say that it's because I ride a hard tail (a blue pig with 140mm), and a full suss is the answer to all my problems. And indeed, out of all the people at the centre, and there were quite a few, I didn't see a single other hard tail.

But I told them they were full of c**p, and that it's my problem, not the bike's. And they ARE the type of guys for whom "upgrade" is the answer to any and all questions.

What has been the STW experience? Is hand pain commonly associated with hardtails, and do I just need a dose of MTFU? And if not, as I suspect, what's the advice for alleviating it a bit? Since I'm a total newbie, I expect I'll keep dragging the brakes for a while yet…

yeah thats a common thing – not caused by riding a hardtail though. its from gripping the bars too tight or the bike not being set up right (handlebar position). it can come from excessive breaking too though!

i had it quite a bit at one time, but when i changed to thicker/ more cushioned grips it sorted the problem out. if you have smaller ahnds then maybe softer/thiner grips will help you…

HAve to say I'd agree with you – especially if you've just done more riding that you usually do.

You're right, it's you. I only ride hardtails. I get various sorts of pain, but I'm pretty confident hand pain isn't about whether the back wheel is suspended. 🙂

I'm fairly new to biking myself and i had the same problem to begin with. My problem was i was holding on to tight and i tended to have all four fingers on the brake handle so all my weight (and there's a lot of it) rested on the base of my thumbs. Learnt to use only one finger on the brake and the pains gone now.

Thanks! I just knew they were talking rubbish!

So for now I'll just keep on rolling, and hopefully with more bike time my grips will break in, my death grip on them will loosen, and I'll ease off on the brakes…

…and check you dont have too much weight resting on the tender parts of your hands – experiment with the angle of the bars too…

As you get more experienced and more confident your vulcan death grip on the bars will lessen.

What gloves if any are you using? A decent glove will help provide some extra padding in the important areas. Can recomend the specialised BG range.

If you can try winding the reach adjust in on your brakes so that they sit closer to the bar. Feels odd at first if you wind them right the way in but it means your finger isn't stretching as far to cover the brake and should help with the pain. Tried it myself on the advice of a friend and it reduced my arm pump issues alot riding DH on a hardtail.

Hmm… The bar angle is a good idea MrCrush. I put the bike together myself without knowing what i was doing, and they're riser bars. And in fact, now that I look at them, they are a bit oddly angled. Cheers!

Also, I suppose the brakes may be angled incorrectly with respect to the bar. I'll have a browse through some bike pics on here to see what the standard should be.

I the same problem that is now cured with messing about with handlebar height/angle. I also got a shorter stem 60mm (original was 120mm) which had the most effect

my hand pain came from poor brake lever set up.

I'm glad you posted this up as I've been suffering from this alot recently. For me it's localised to my fingers only, my palms and arms and thumbs are fine.

It's worried me a bit because I've been riding several times a week for probably six months or so now and it's only really started in the last month. I'm not riding anything that different to before. It's also really annoying having to stop half way down decents I used to do in one.

Going to give some bigger grips a go…anyone got any reccomendations?

Thanks!
With respect to the reach adjustment on the brakes…
They're an old pair of M4s, and I've adjusted them to lock up the wheels on tarmac when the lever is nearly hitting the grip. But the thing is that for the first half or a third of lever travel, nothing happens. Is that normal?

You're right: they were talking c**p. Rear suspension is not going to reduce the workload on your hands because you will just ride faster. There's some good advice above. May I suggest you try some of the following, one at a time, and find what works for you:

[*]Your grips might be a bit harsh – ask your shop for some soft rubber grips, not necessarily thicker, just softer rubber.[/*]
[*]One finger braking – you need to budge the levers and shifters 0.5" to 1" toward the centre of the bar so that when holding the ends of the bars you can operate the lever with just your forefinger. You'll find a grub screw or dial on the levers that adjust the reach – wind it so that maximum power is somewhere around parallel with the bar or maybe closer – suck it and see what works. The effect is to allow you to hold the grip with three fingers and operate the brake with minimum effort. This helps me loads.[/*]
[*]Brake angle and the effect on position – try rotating you levers up so they are flatter not drooping down so much. This has the effect of dropping and bending your elbows and generally allowing you to move more easily back and forth and absorb impacts with your body.[/*]
[*]Weight on your feet – one thing about riding a HT I find is then when you hit chaos, it's easy to get pushed onto the front which is tiring and iffy. I try to concentrate on loosely holding my weight on the pedals by flexing my legs and shuftying myself back and forward. It leaves my hands firm but light on the bars.[/*]
[*]Have a look at your fork springs/settings – they might be a bit much for your weight or have excessive compression damping. Do they sag a bit when you are on the bike? Do they move easily when you bounce your weight on them?[/*]

Good luck

There may or may not be set-up issues, but I doubt they are related to hardtail – except for maybe getting pitched on to your hands.

As others have said – ride on your feet and relax your hands. This is the correct way to ride any way, not just a means to give your hands an easier time. Drive the bike with your feet and be neutral with your hands.

PS – Buzz is dead right about brake levers – not too far down. Bring them up so that you are encouraged to drop your elbows and just lay your hands on the bars so that your fingers are there to operate the brakes. Don't wrestle the front of the bike.

scottidog – the sunline thick grips did the trick for me!

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=19265

Cheers Mr Crush I'll give 'em a go!

Wow, thanks a lot for the advice! I really appreciate it, and it seems that a picture is emerging of where I should look for a solution.

Thanks for taking the time — Buzz, that's golden.

A little tip – get your heels down, behind the pedal axles, whilst keeping soft knees. That will help you stay engaged with the bike. Try and forget your hands and let them be neutral.

"ride on your feet and relax your hands"

This is great advice I think, and something I personally find hard to do consistently. But I believe it's what makes the riding flow instead of being a battle.

Here's another tip. Some people will say that you're not riding "properly" if your saddle not at full height all the time. The way XC racers handle their bikes on technical ground like this is impressive. Personally, I drop my saddle 4" whenever I feel like it. It's like gaining 4" of rear suspension. It may help you loosen up and relax your grip on the downhills.

Drop bars are the answer. You can ride rough stuff with quite a loose grip. It's the death grip that's causing you the problem.

Works for me even on 24 hour solo races with a rigid front fork.

Yeah, I've figured out the seat dropping and one fingered braking…
Epic — are you joking about the drop bars?!

And the death grip isn't easing up anytime soon, I'm afraid, as it takes a little while to grow a pair — fifth time on a mountain bike ever, and I ended up on this: scaffa del gatto. In the video it looks quite flat, but it is not, and it's a miracle I survived. Twice. But had to change my undies each time. 😀

Better to build up progressively and not develop the death grip habit, rather than try and jump in the deep end and end up with stuff to un-learn. Being relaxed in general is absolutely vital to smooth progress – just the same as skiing, if you're stiff you cannot dissipate energy that vibrates up through the bike and into you. Then you feel even more tense, you start looking at the ground and reacting to it, and hey presto – at best you stay on by wrestling the bike, and at worst you have a spill.

Can't see how handpain on a hardtail with a 140mm fork is related to a lack of travel on the rear. Full rigid bike, maybe, but not a hardtail.

Sounds like your mates have been taken in by all the hype that 6" travel full sus bikes are the only type of bike to ride.

You're pretty spot on with your ideas about what is causing your hand pain. If you recognise that the grips are too hard & big then I'd get those changed asap, it's a simple cheap change that might help a lot. You're not running the forks really firm are you?

Anybody know of a good set of thin lock ons with a soft compound. All the ones I can find are thicker than the regular ones.

You may be right Glen… But it's hard to say no.

And no ( 🙂 ), the forks aren't firm, but the grips were probably a serious misjudgment that will have to be rectified — and i'm surely going to be laughed at, but — carbon bar with these, and they are THICK and HARD:

But I do adore leather, and will be sorry to see them go…

I had sore/numb hands early on – problem rectified with Ergon grips.

Andy

Possible look at the angle of your brake levers too – many have them mounted too far back/up and so struggle, especially downhill.

Also wear decent gloves.

I changed to Race Face Good n Evil grips and they filled out my fat hands a lot better than my GT lock-ons I had purchased.

They made a big difference to me for hand ache. Still got aching hands, but that is down to them being a bit stuffed internally more than anything.

theyEye – Member
Yeah, I've figured out the seat dropping and one fingered braking…
Epic — are you joking about the drop bars?!
And the death grip isn't easing up anytime soon…

The drop bars allow you to hammer over rough stuff with a much looser grip – definitely no death grip needed!

I'm old enough that I would have rattled apart long ago if it didn't work 🙂

The advice about positioning yourself so your weight is on your feet is good.

(Most races I do are 12 or 24 hour so that's plenty time to have found out if it didn't work)

Ergons are good, although the bar ends I find a bit short; also think about using bar ends (shock horror) if your carbon bars can take them OK (you can get bar plugs to help against crushing). Apart from Ergons I

float` on the grips too. As said above check rotational angles on the riser bars as a little change can cause a lot of effect on hand / wrist angles