Kapusta

I am not 100% clear from the OP if this is a new bike or a flat-to-drop conversion.

If it is the latter, being too stretched out is not surprising for the reasons others have given.

shelbyfv

Apparently it is a flat to drop conversion. It's unlikely that a bike that fit properly with flat bars can become a properly fitting drop bar bike w/o some weird kludges. Switch it back to flat bars and shop for a drop bar bike when the current shortage is resolved.

70sSanO

As others have said, 10cm is a lot of change. Seat tilt can go a long ways to taking pressure off the hands. If you seat is tilted with the nose down you end up with more weight on your hands.

There is a lot of talk about riding on the hoods; which is generally a nice cruising position. But if you never actually rude in the drops, or ride very little, you might want to look at a different bar. The Jones H bar was brought up. Butterfly bars. There is an interesting Kitchen Sink bar, which is still a drop.

John

MoAlpha

Two comments on this.

1. The OP has symptoms in the little and ring fingers, which implicates the ulnar nerve, visible and unlabeled in the diagram, not the median. The most common site of compression for cyclists in in the little-finger side of the base of the palm, but damage at the elbow is also common and makes the nerve more vulnerable anywhere downstream. C-8/T-1 root problems can also cause numbness in those fingers, but it usually hurts too.

2. "Carpal" is spelled wrong in the labels.

sven77

Hello -

Im only allowed to reply 5 times in 24 hrs as a newbie! Had to wait it out. Thanks very much for everyones excellent advice here. Lots of good points and also things I hadn't considered which have probably resulted in the issues i've been experiencing. Really useful for future options.

I built this bike from the frame up late last year. It is a Surly Pack Rat which is successfully built with both drop bars and flat bars (is sold complete as a drop bar bike). My build started off as a flat bar as I mentioned and then I converted to drop bar for more hand placements / bar bag space. The flat bar iteration never gave me any numbness.

I have measured the distance change between my flat bar hand location and distance to hoods on drop bars and the change is 10cm as I thought despite using a 60mm stem instead of the original 70mm one. As a side note i've also found the 60mm stem very squirrelly/ bit terrifying! As pointed out here 10cm is a big big change and ive come to the conclusion im stretching way to far forward with drop bars which is where the issue lies.

As the flat bars gave me no issues I have returned to those as the drops are not a deal breaker. Interesting that the frame suits me perfectly as a flat bar but is obviously too big (top tube too long) as a drop bar bike. I guess that means if I get a drop bar bike in future to pay attention to that. I took a bit of a punt on this frame anyway as it was the only one left I could find as Surly discontinued it late last year but will continue to enjoy it in its original state which cause no issues.

Thanks again for everyones input - been very educational. No wonder us newbies only get a limit amount of posts - sit back and learn!

gringomojado

Some think drop bars look "cooler" than flats, more "pro". Forget looks and use what has been working for you!

GM

70sSanO

I’m glad you changed back and it is working.

Just a clarification... I mis-interpreted your 10cm response. Of course you are going to have about that much if you measure to the “hoods”. You can’t take 4 inches off the top tube and stem to equal flat bar grips and drop bar hood distance. No one rides that much of a difference between flat and drops.

I’ve ridden road bikes for decades and by their very nature you are stretched out more that riding an upright bike. Also riding a bike with the stem/bars a couple inches below the saddle vs. a couple inches above requires a certain flexibility and core. And there is a point where the bars get too low and your hand and shoulders will suffer, but everyone is different.

If you decide to try drops again, you can get an extension for your steerer to raise the bars to a level that doesn’t require you to put so much weight on the bars.

And saddle tilt does help distribute the weight. But it is a bit of a fine line in that upward tilt will help with weight distribution off your arms, but a bit too much will definitely be uncomfortable in the drops.

John

sven77

I think my original posts may have been a bit disjointed trying to figure out what was going on! I can see how the hoods would be located further forward overall and did think about the less upright position might seem a bit odd to start off with and if that was a factor at play. I didn't get numbness on every ride but I did about 60-70% overall. Its a shame as quite liked the less upright position even on the hoods. I read somewhere else that if you find your hands naturally falling short from the hoods and you're hanging about more on the ramps that it could be a sign the reach is too much. Did get the feeling that if the hoods were even 4-5cm closer it would've been a whole lot more comfortable The slightly shorter stem (had a 6 degree rise) was a slight improvement and I tried to be more conscious on the last few rides on hand / wrist position and to move them around a bit more but still had numbness that would take about 3-4 days to go in my smaller fingers.

Ive been upping the mileage over the last 6 months and didn't have any issues with flat bars so think best bet for now but definitely have a better understanding for the future though. Cheers

70sSanO

What you can do with your flat bar is resting your forearms on your flat bar and try to find a comfortable position. This is most likely easier with your bike on a trainer. If you can find a setup where you don’t feel a lot weight on your arms, that might help find a good height and reach.

If you have any spacers under your flat bar, you can start to move them above the stem and see how it goes on a ride.

John

terrymorse 

It's important to mention that switching to the lower torso position of drop bars requires a period of time for your body to become accustomed to. It's natural for the new position to feel uncomfortable, for a while.

I've been riding with drop bars for decades, but if I have been off the bike for several months, it takes me weeks in the saddle to get back to being comfortable again. I'll add spacers under my stem in the early season to raise the bars, removing them gradually as I build up core strength.

The ideal position for comfort looks like this, with a 90º angle from torso to upper arm, and a slight bend at the elbow. Note the angle of the torso is ~45º from vertical. That torso position requires core muscles.



from bikefit.com

If the position is new to you, it will force you to carry more weight on your hands. This is normal. As your core strength develops, your hands will no longer need to hold up your torso, and you should be able to maintain that position with almost no weight on your hands.

Road Fan

My opinion is that it is not worth it to add to the severity of a hand injury. The benefits you want from drop bars are worth pursuing, and good bike fitting (not sizing) is important in riding safely in a dropped position. Hand numbness is basically due to excess pressure on the hands where they contact the bars. One way to attack this is to move your body center of gravity rearward, perhaps by ½ inch. Check to see if your saddle rails can be slid backwards. You should begin to feel a little like a ski racer curled in a tuck. When you lean forward to take the bars, you should keep your back straight and bend from the hips. You can also expect that your old saddle may need ajustment - a litte higher or lower, nose down a little, or the initial setting-back may need to be fine-tuned. The handlbar height may also need to be adjusted - it could need to go up or down.

Essentially if this fine tuning works, you don't need to buy more hardware at this point.

Road Fan

I would say saddle tilt does not directly affect hand pressure. It directly affects pressure distribution across your backside, and if you have just the right amount of tilt-up AND your distance to te bars is close to correct, it can help you reduce hand pressure. After sliding the saddle back as I described, you may need to move the bars back a little to get your and reach comfortable. This has minimal effect on actual balance, but it does affect whether stretching to reach the bar is excessive, and your reaching is making you want to move forward to reduce stretch in the arms and back. There's a fine balance, but your butt needs to stay in the position where your hand pressure reduced. You may fine-tune that, but don't just slide forward bacause you are stretching too much.

mstateglfr 

it shouldnt come as a surprise that you feel stretched out on a bike setup that is so drastically different from what you liked before.
glad to hear you switched back

KJ43

This is a great point.

My background was about 30 years of mountain biking and at the end my bike was much more of an enduro ride, built heavy, good amount of travel, and a very upright position with a very short stem. I also have nerve damage and mucho scar tissue from a lifetime of sports including skateboarding, snowboarding, etc.

My current ride for about a year now was my first drop bar bike. At first I tried raising it up a bit, explored extra padding on the bar tape, glove, etc. But I was having terrible numbness in both hands and got pretty bad cycling palsy. I found that raising my bars and shortening the stem actually made my issue worse. I believe the excess padding in my gloves contributed to the numbness also by creating more pressure on my palm.

I eventually backed off a bit and worked hard on getting my bike fit to me and adapting to the more stretched out position on the bike. I now have my stem lower and longer and use gloves with no padding and don't have any issues any more. The thing that made the most difference for me was dialing in my saddle position so that when I lean forward while peddling I don't have too much weight on my bars. I can lift my hands off my bars and keep my position if I want to.

It probably took me 6 months to fully adapt once I committed to making it work and I'm glad I did. Just wanted to chime in with my experience.

genejockey 

I do sometimes wonder if all the threads I see where people are asking about thicker bar tape, more padding under the tape or what padded gloves to get, etc. might be more indicative of bad fit than any need for more padding. That is, the problem is bad fit, not lack of padding. I don't think my hands are especially insensitive - indeed, after decades of using the old style manual pipetters they might be MORE sensitive - but I run 2.5mm thick bar tape and gloves with no pads, and I have no problem with pain or numbness. The only times I have had that problem, adjusting position fixed it - and it was adjusting the bar DOWN, not up.

I don't claim to know this is the case for the majority of people asking how they can get more padding, but I suspect a lot of them could solve their problem with a proper fit.

KJ43

This is exactly how I feel.

For the record, I did not get a real bike fit from a professional, but I spent many hours down the rabbit hole and working on my position step by step to get where I am and couldn't be happier with solving my numbness issues. I would guess that I'm definitely on the "more damaged" side of things compared to most people.

I would theorize that most people are looking for a quick fix and not willing to spend the time on fixing their position on the bike first.

livedarklions

I don't know if this relates or not, but I am about two months into coming off of a long lay up, and I found that when I first came back, I was in the habit of grabbing the hoods and holding them tight. I think it was a lack of confidence reaction and I wasn't aware I was doing it until it got really tingly and sore. That's gone away and I'm back to my normal grips and hand positions, which I can maintain for many miles. Also back to riding the hooks which required a bit of self-coaxing.

TL/DR: white knuckling can be a real thing.

79pmooney

I've been hearing the importance of "core strength" for a few years now. (Never heard when I raced 45 years ago.) Apparently weigh on the hands is something to be avoided like the plague. I never bought into it. I ride with "normal" seat setback; seat nose about an inch behind a plumb to the BB. Ride with real forward lean, going to close to horizontal going upwind simply because I'm a long, skinny, under-powered leaf. I use stems that are very long except on my customs that have top tubes and angles to accomplish the same thing.

I do have to dial in my "cockpit" setups (handlebar choice, height and rotation, stem length and brake hood type and location) carefully to get hand positions in both the drops and on the hoods to be all day comfortable with that much weight. Once there, it isn't an issue. (And as I said last page and another posted said above, what works for me is the bars rotated down. The same with the brake levers. Rotated up and back is torture while riding and causes me pain long after the ride ends.)

An analogy that nicely explains my position on a bike - I want to be like a cat doing its stretch. With my vertebrae as long as they can get. A reach forward that encourages this. Like that cat, I need my paws on something solid!

And a comment on supporting oneself via core vs hands - why would you expend the effort to use core muscles to resist bending forward like a cantilever bridge with its massive concrete supports at the river's edge when you can get the same effect at the other end of the beam with far less effort! (One simple support mid river saves many truckloads of concrete.) Yes, a strong core is good for you but I focus my riding on the ride, not as full body weights and calisthenics with some miles thrown in as a byproduct. And I find my core gets plenty of exercise assisting my legs without asking it to be an inefficient bridge support.

wolfchild

I have managed to successfully fit drop bars on two of my mountain bikes. My mountain bikes also have a rigid fork and I left my steerer tube uncut. A longer steerer tube really helps to make the drop bars fit better. I also had to experiment with few different stems and I finally settled for a short stem with 35 degree raise. Then I also had to make some adjustments to my saddle. I set up my drops bars so i can ride comfortably in the drops or on the hoods...To me it was worth it, I can go mountain biking on singletrack trails and I am comfortable on longer distance gravel rides, or pavement.

Cougrrcj

You also must look at the ANGLE of the wrist as it sits on the bars. One of my motorcycles gave me pain until I changed bars to get my wrist/grip more perpendicular to the bar. After that, no problem.

Same for drop bars on a bicycle. Look at the angle of your wrist as it grips the bar. Sometimes even a 10° angle change in handlebar tilt in the stem will alleviate the problem.

philbob57

That bikefit.com diagram does not take into account the fairly significant deviations from average that the average body demonstrates.

Troul 

Similar to how I feel to extract most power & be all day comfortable for riding a dropbar setup.

Gresp15C

That raises a point, which is that riding drops may be more comfortable if you started riding that way when you were younger and more flexible. Stronger riders also tend to have started younger.

I had no problem with drops when I was a teenager. What happened was I discovered that I just liked more casual riding on an upright bar bike, and also, spent many years in college and grad school when I did little or no recreational riding, so I was fine with an old AMF Hercules, and my road bike gathered dust. And then in the intervening years, spent hours a day in front of a computer with typical bad posture. When my son wanted a drop bar bike, we built one up, and he loves it, but it's painful for me to ride. We're almost identical stature.

ofajen

What bars are you using? I rode my 80s RockHopper with drop bars for several years using very similar adaptations, but it always seemed like I was just a bit lacking in bar width and leverage for that steering geometry. I was mostly using 45cm classic Maes bend bars.

Right now I have touring bars on it and the forward bends are about 48 cm which seems fine, so I’m thinking 48 cm drops might just be the thing.

Otto

afm199

Rule of thumb for me is that hand pain indicates one of two things.
1. Too much weight on the bars. That is remedied by several moves.
2. Angle of wrist is too extreme, pinching nerves. Again multiple remedies.

As to the bars, some guys believe the bottoms of the drops should be parallel to the top tube or road. Forget it. The tops of the drop should be flat, and on the same plane as the brifter body, so you have a flat platform from the top of the bars to the brifter hump. If you put the bottoms of the drops parallel to the road, you often end up with the brifters down low and the top of the bar tilted down, putting much more weight on the wrists.