Bethany

Been riding my Ridley X-BOW cross bike for a couple of months now and after about 1.5-2 hours in my left arm/wrist goes numb. I know I'm putting too much pressure on my handlebars so something needs adjusted. It's hard to use the brakes/hoods because they feel so far forward and the width of the bars seem "off". My hands just haven't found a comfortable position. Not sure if I need a shorter stem or move forward my saddle. My right side is fine, but my left side really struggles with hand positions.

After doing some reading I checked out hand positions and seeing if I locked my elbow which I do for stabilization. My left wrist has hard time dealing with the hoods as well. The last ride went better as I tried to keep everything more relaxed from looking at hand positions on the internet.

What I really miss are my Woodchipper bars from my Fargo. I just feel cramped on road bars. Cow Bells have a smaller flare but don't which length to get.

I crashed in December and landed on my elbow and wrist causing some nerve pain for a couple of months. I'm sure part of the pain is from that injury. It took 2 months before I could put any weight on my wrist and elbow. If it's injury related, any way of fixing the bars/hoods/shifters to compensate for that?

When I called about a fitting, the lady said it 120 dollars of which I don't have and hate to play the "buying new stuff and hope it works" game. I've had several fittings over the years none of which were helpful as I was told conflicting information which never seemed to help.

Thanks for any help or advice. I'm not against fittings. I'd just have to save up for one and then have money to change out parts.