Hi

Wonder if anyone can help. Was up at Afan over the weekend and noticed on the long decents that my fingers were in agony. By the time I was finishing sections I could barely feel them.

I noticed that vibrations through the front of the bike made them really sore. I’m riding a Cotic BFe with a Pike Coil U-Turn wound out to 140mm with Ruffian ODI grips. Now, I’m thinking it might be the grips are quite thin, and my fingers are too wrapped around the bars. Maybe more padded grips would help?

Also, I have hyper-extension of my finger joints (double jointed), so not sure if that plays a part.

Any advise to try to help eliminate it would be great. Thanks.

Gloves? Padded help. Sounds like your arms could be too tight, try to pump and flex them more to soak up the bumps. A powerball could also help to strengthen your grip and hand muscles

Have you changed anything recently?

Things to play around with:

Lever position and angle on the bars.
Increase the rebound speed of your forks.

Don’t hold on so tight – not nearly so tight. Let the ‘bars waggle and jiggle in your hands and ride the bike on your feet.

No handed works for me 🙂

yeah your probably holding the handlebars too tightly. Once the pain is there it will make it feel the like the vibrations are causing it.

I (and the guy I ride with) had this problem really bad a few years ago when we first started riding afan. After the local trails we’ve always ridden, afan was the first place we were doing such long rides with that amount of rocky decents.

It’s basically fategue in your fingers. Simple answer is doing that kind of riding more will help. Nowadays I sometimes get a bit of pain towards the end of a long ride, but no where near what it used to be like. I also have thin, hard grips and that hasn’t changed.

You can try relaxing your grip a bit, as that helps the blood flow to your fingers better. Opening your hand fully when you get the chance can releave the pain in the very short term. Also, make sure you are only using one finger to break, and try not to hover your finger on the brake leaver when your not braking. The more fingers you have on the grip, the easier it will be on your hands.

My friend had a period a while ago where this pain came back with a vengeance and he couldn’t work out why. Finally he spotted that (for some reason) he was riding with his thumbs above the bars, not below! Coupled with 2 finger braking, he only had 2 fingers in each hard to hold onto the bars! Resulting in gripping way too hard.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the answers. To confirm a couple of things:

1. Became aware I was gripping the bars fairly tightly, but the decents at Afan on Whites especially were so rocky felt I couldn’t loosen up much more than I was, I was consciously trying to relax, but the pain was still there.

2. I was braking with 1 finger as suggested. However I was keeping it floating over the lever for most of the way down.

3. I have recently adjusted the angle of the levers to be a bit more ‘up’. At suggestion of Jedi on a UK Bike Skills course, to help keep a natural break in my wrist. Maybe I adjusted it a bit too far?

Was thinking to change the Ruffians for a set of Rogue grips, or should I not bother? The powerball thing sounds like it’s worth a try. Unfortunately I live in Norfolk, not the hilliest of terrains, so can’t get rid of the problem by riding more long decents, as we don’t have them 😀

Unfortunately I live in Norfolk, not the hilliest of terrains, so can’t get rid of the problem by riding more long decents, as we don’t have them

I’d suggest rock climbing, but there’s not much of that in norfolk either!

Flatten the angle of your levers.

Bear in mind though that it is only the flat face of a rock hitting across your front wheel that can deflect it appreciably. Everything else, the speed of your bike gives so much gyroscopic effect that the front wheel need not be wrestled with. In other words, it is likely that you can still afford to relax more!

I don’t think it is likely that you will have brought your levers too far up – dropped wrist and soft hands is correct.

(Having said all of that, I like Rogues.)

You can still practice – in fact it is better to practice where it doesn’t matter so much. So – ride really really loose handed (or even no handed, standing up) on very slightly bumpy downhill offroad tracks – then it will feel more natural when you go to something bumpier.

I used to get this a lot, badly enough that I’d have to stop for fear of losing my grip on the bars entirely. Tried padded gloves, but they didn’t make much difference. I think it’s basically a forearm-strength/fatigue thing, you end up losing the ability to grip properly because your arms are tired; you’re reduced to squeezing the bars as hard as you can just to stay on, and this puts pressure on your joints, causing pain.

The obvious solution is just to ride more bumpy stuff, but as free time is somewhat scarce for me, what with having a small child and a business to look after, I bought one of those squeezy rubber ring forearm exerciser things and use it whenever I remember to (it’s on my desk right now, makes quite a good office-related stress reliever). I think mine cost a fiver from CRC or somewhere like that. I bought the easiest, squishiest one as I reasoned that lots of reps at low power would be best for building up endurance in the relevant muscles. I still get occasional twinges at the end of long rides but nowhere near as bad as it used to be, and it’s definitely happening much less frequently.

Cheers everyone – will work out some kind of strength training thing. And just practise being a bit more relaxed 🙂

3. I have recently adjusted the angle of the levers to be a bit more ‘up’. At suggestion of Jedi on a UK Bike Skills course, to help keep a natural break in my wrist. Maybe I adjusted it a bit too far?

This may be your problem if you’ve adjusted them too far. – Close your three gripping fingers and extend your braking finger with your wrist in an exaggerated down position and there’s definite strain on the first two fingers – the little one especially.

I used to have some of those horrid ergo grips when I had the problem – they were absolutely no good. Someone recommended switching back to a much thinner grip – I now use the Ragley Logo lock on grips along with Endura Full Monty gloves – which took away a lot of the stress – rarely have problems now.

No better remedy than riding more though.

EDIT: Also have a powerball for wrist strength as well as doing chin-ups for general arm / upper body strength.

I had a similar finger issue on a bike I’d used regularly for long descents with no probs. – went on an uplift day @ Cwmcarn and 6 runs in and my fingers huuurt! Changed the spring in my forks for a softer one and since then no probs.

Sounds like Death Grip.

prezet, did i adjust them?

Not exactly the same but I’m having issues with my hands. Been riding a lot lately and when I’m off the bike, if i curl my fingers I get a bit of pain in the joints on my ring finger. In addition if I curl them right round into a fist position I can feel my ring finger “lock” into place. At a certain point I feel something (tendon?) click and it locks my ring fingers in a curl position. I can uncurl the rest and the ring finger will remain curled and I need to give it a gentle nudge to unlock it. 🙁

Herts0010 by ukbikeskills, on Flickr

I broke my hand and fingers a few years ago, now only two fingers on my left hand do any gripping, when Im braking I only have one useful finger on the grips. I changed to thicker grips and and really fussy about where my brake levers are. They go way inboard so by finger is using the tip of the blade. A bigger / softer front tyre helps, as does furiously rubbing Captain Picards head.

Hey Jedi – No you didn’t, you said they were pointing down a little too much, so I adjusted them when I got home a few days later. They’re pretty much bang on to the pic you’ve shown. Also moved them in a little like you suggested to brake more on the end of the lever rather than the middle like I was using.

email me pics lee and i’ll see what’s up