I’ve gone for short stem and wide bars on my cotic in the last month or so. However, I’ve established neck pain! any tips lads? stem is 70m and bars are 725 atlas am.

Stem rise/ bar height might not be enough. A recently heard a tip that one can slightly turn the head when riding to avoid aggravating the nerve – dunno if that is true.

Having to lean further forward due to the width of the bars?

Do you have a peak on your bike helmet – if so there is the possibility that you crane your neck forward and tilt your head up to see past the peak.

I use a road helmet for this reason – no peak.

Do you have a desk job – are you leaning forward and similairly craning your neck – an overextended neck.

you can also look at your pillow – a lot of neck and back problems stem from sleeping in a bad position.

There is a McKenzie book named Treat Your Own Neck. They do a neck roll for your pillow as well, which works well.

thanks lads!
could be a mixture of a few of those things, its more or less on the right side of neck where shoulder meets the skull if you catch me…

could just be something a good osteopath could nail – my wife was getting blinding headaches at the back of the skull and it was just a muscle problem at the base of the neck – a good pummelling followed by some exercises to strengthen those muscles sorted it.

Any changes to set up can really make an impact. how wide were your last bars? SBZ might have the answer.

How broad shouldered are you..?

In my opinion.. wide bars are only suitable for people with wide shoulders..

I know it’s very fashionable to fit wide bars but if you’re not wide yourself it’s the equivilent of wearing jeans that are 6 sizes too big and hang ’round yer arse in fashion terms..

I had a similar but slightly different issue my self. On my flat bar road bike I tried some ‘fixie’ narrow flat bars and the next day after a 25 mile commute I couldn’t move my neck. I put it down to the window being open whilst I was asleep and a possible draft. Then the next time I rode that bike to work, again the next day I have the same neck pain this time however the window was not open so I put 2 and 2 together and realised it was the bars.
I changed the bars back and was fine, window open while I sleep or not!!

wow that widow story was interesting, how wide is the window? lol