Recently returned from BPW and some trail centres. On each of these separate occasions I have suffered hand cramp that have rendered my hands immovable. The pain is quite significant and I cannot grip the bars or brake/change gear. They then ache for about 4 days afterwards.

I ride a Whyte T130s

has anyone suffered anything similar? what solutions would be suggested; new grips is an avenue, something thicker and softer perhaps? any recommendations? may also try some spare bars I have lying around too.

cheers
Dave

Sounds too severe to be just grips or gloves. Does the bike actually fit you?

Id have thought gloves but if its as bad as that, I would aim for a doctor too

Are you riding a new bike? Changed handlebar / seat / grip position lately? Do you ride trail centre style stuff regularly?

Could be a number of things related to the above. I solved my own hand pain problems by tweaking cockpit setup and investing in some really thick and chunky (Oury) grips.

…and another thing. Is there anything you are doing elsewhere in your life such as at work that could injure your hands that only appears when riding?

I hurt my shoulder playing rugby but discovered the injury was in fact caused/created by using a laptop all day, rugby just bought it out.

Lots of potential reasons.

How long have you had the bike?
Have you changed anything on it recently?
Is the bike set up correctly?

I would get tingling/numb fingers after long rides (talking 200Km here) and it took a while to sort out. Not surprisingly such long rides aren’t a daily or weekly occurrence so what would work for a four or five hour ride might not be right after twelve. I raised the stem; shortened the stem; changed grips to Ergons; eventually I tilted the saddle down a couple of degrees and that sorted it. It probably isn’t the solution to your problem but you need to try each possible solution one at a time.

yea I have been thinking about fit. The bike had some pikes fitted recently which had a short steerer; reducing the stem height by about 10mm. but I have ridden these places before on this bike in this set up with not as bad symptoms issues as this, its been getting worse. may need to invest in a new CSU for the pikes to make them longer…

could be work, but nothing here has really changed for the past 3 years. its mainly spent looking at a PC (wishing I was somewhere else!)

Having ignored symptoms in my hands for so long, putting it down to different bikes/gloves/bars/terrain etc etc – I had rather a shock when I finally got an mri and it showed moderate/severe cord compression with myelopathy in my neck . . . Personally I’d get it looked at 😉

I’d look at the angle of the bars and the position and angle of the brake levers. Specifically, make sure that the bars aren’t rolled back too much and that the brake levers aren’t too far out on the bars, there should be a good gap between grips and brake levers for almost everyone. Both of these things will tend to force your wrists into an un-natural position, putting pressure on the wrong part of your hand and tending to push your elbows in and down which hinders your riding in general.

Death grip?