Originally Posted by mechBgon
As a starting point, check your seat angle. If it's nose-down, it slides you toward the handlebar and you have to push back. I saw this every so often as a shop mechanic... people complaining of wrist/hand trouble and sure enough, their seat is nose-down. Don't be afraid to use a higher handlebar & stem if it suits you, but still make sure your seat isn't trying to dump you off the front
^ Just in case you missed that
The usual rationale for tilting it nose-down is that it makes most of the pressure rest on the wide part, but the practical effect is that you keep sliding forward onto the narrow part, and therefore you have to counteract that with additional pressure on your hands/wrists.
With your seat leveled out, you're going to decide "hey, I want my handlebar higher." Easily done, you posted a pic of your bike in this thread:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=205817 And it looks like you could simply plunk a 3-inch-rise handlebar onto the bike in place of the flat bar, you have a fair amount of front-brake-cable housing to work with.
Here's a bar with about 2.5" of rise for $5, to get the ball rolling:
http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?c...eid=&pagename= They also have a 4"-rise one, but you'd want to replace your front brake cable & housing if you chose that one. It doesn't look like you've got quite that much leeway in the front brake cable.