Just got my first drop barred bike recently, and did my first 50 miler yesterday. I had to keep changing hand position to stop the numbness, and after I got home I noticed that my left hand feels very weak in particular.

I can't adjust the bars up any higher, I'm thinking thicker tape? do road specific gloves help? as my mtb ones have the padding in the wrong place. Or will I get used to it?.

Cheers.

Could also be your arm, shoulder, body position effecting nerves in your shoulders and arms, might want to look at riding position – different stem shorter/higher rise or try moving your saddle forward. Also worth doing some stretching before your ride and during, you are much more static on a road bike than a mtb. You can get better padded tape (cinelli cork etc) you can also get padded covers for the brake hoods.

I put a quick 50 in last weekend and suffered a bit of numbness.

I've already got padded bar tape fitted, etc.

I agree with Rootes1 that its possibly a set-up issue.

I think I'm putting too much weight on the hand and so compressing the ulna nerve, leading to the numbness.

When I get round to it, I'm going to tweak my position on the bike to try to address this issue.

I'm also considering bars with a flatter, horizontal cross section to them, either side of the stem, to help spread the load.

🙂

Luminous

It's too much weight on your hands, usually because you are sitting too far forwards, or because your stem is too short. Get stretched out a bit, get more weight on your bum and less through your hands, plus develop a bit more core strength…

Too far forward. You should be able to take your hands off the bars even when your crouched over them.

Similar to what Crikey said – you will probably be using your arms to hold your upper body up. This leads to stretching and compression of the nerves in your neck, shoulders, arms and hands. Core conditioning is the only real way to sort it. I wouldn't assume that your stem is too short though, I had similar problems when my stem was too long.

I ventured to the dark side for the first time about 2 months ago and had a terrible pain/numbness (if that is possible at the same time) in the hand and thumb areas. My mate told me this would get better as i rode more, and i am glad to say he was right. Stick with it, it gets better.

Gripping too hard. Learn to relax and try going back to your LBS and talking about fit – you did buy it from your LBS didn't you?

I get it on the road bike, I think its cos the vast majority of my lardyness is on my upper body, pivot me at the base of my spine and lean me forwards and I'm carrying lots of weight on my hands..