It doesn't. Sit in a rolling chair, put your hands on the desk and roll the chair back, keeping your elbows at the same angle. Where do your shoulders move?

It does move the head and shoulders back... probably about 1/2 to 1/2 of the distance the saddle is moved back. I just did the rolling chair test you described and my head and shoulders indeed moved back about half the distance that I rolled the chair.

Did you straighten your arms? Keeping the elbows as they were, your head will move down, and remain the same proportion from rear to handlebars.

Do you know Grant Peterson? He doesn't believe anything all of the other cyclists do either. What do you suggest as a relief for having too much weight on your hands with a bike that in all other respects fits? I am saying the methods described by some of the posters do indeed seem to help. I have no trouble doing 40 to 60 miles on the hoods now that I have learned the set up that works for me, maybe not you.

He probably speaks for more cyclists than we do, but never mind that.

What I suggest is that for numb hands, "Saddle position is part of it, and hand position, and hood or bar shape, but also reach and technique" from my first post. Weight on the hands isn't the issue - weight on certain pressure points in the hands causes numbness. And if you push the seat back, keeping your arms the same, you'll be leaning slightly more forward and have more weight on your hands than before, not less. You probably straightened your arms when you moved back keeping the lean the same or even sitting up more, which will slightly reduce the weight. That also changes the angle of the wrist and/or hand. And the otherwise perfect fit as far as that goes. You don't want a lot of weight on your hands but minor changes aren't going to help any.

I also ride 40-60 miles without issue, with as aggressive a setup as I can manage and really cheap non-ergonomic hoods. It wasn't until I disregarded "weight on my hands" and considered the hands themselves that I could do it without numbness. In a nutshell don't push down on the Ulnar nerve, and to a lessor extent the Median.It's not just me with an opinion:

https://highperformancesports.blogspo...-palsy-or.html
https://www.hughston.com/hha/a_15_3_2.htm
https://drdavid*****ky.com/procedures...nar_nerve.html
https://velonews.competitor.com/2011/...lutions_168742

Yes I absolutely kept my arms in the same angle (as much as possible). Here is an approximation of what happens:

All your weight, except for your hands, moves back. Parts of your body closer to you hands (arms) move back less than your shoulders and head, which moves back less than your upper back, which moves back less than your lower back, which moves back less than your seat. But everything but your hands and forearms moves back at least slightly. Here is a super technical sciency drawing illustrating the action:

Nice illustration! Your head does move back relative to its previous position, but the important feature with regards to weight is relative to the points which bear weight. Hands and seat. His head has moved way forward relative to the seat and the red figure has much less weight on his hands than the brown figure.

I don't think race enters into it, but if that's the way you see the world...

Thanks! I quite like it, too!

I don't know that is necessarily does - if your hips were a frictionless pivot then maybe, but the more you bend over the more your weight is supported by your stretched out trunk muscles. That is where my graphic is misleading - people seldom ride perfectly upright as the red figure is... they are almost always leaning somewhat. And the weight you have to support is much closer to the saddle than the bars when you move your weight back. Imagine balancing a heavy weight on a 10 foot ladder - and the weight is 1 foot from one end of the ladder and 9 feet fromt he other end - the person lifting the end 9 feet away from the weight is lifting much less than the guy close to the weight.

Anyhoo, my theory is that excess hand pressure is almost always caused by and cured by the angle of the saddle... if the saddle is pointed nose-up, it tilts the pelvis back and forces trunk muscles to support more of the weight. If the saddle is nose down, not only does it not encourage the pelvis to rotate back, but the riders weight has to be stopped from sliding forwards.

Even if the first figure is already leaning, and you only move back a couple of inches, it still puts more weight on the hands by moving back. As long as the two lines are the same length (seat to shoulder, shoulder to hands) in both situations. I may be harping on this too much, but if we tell people "move the seat back to take weight of your hands", they do that and realize that it really doesn't, then what?

I agree with you, keep the saddle level or even up can help tremendously compared to tilted down, pushing you against the bars. And also it's a good point that closing the torso-hip angle your core can take up some of the weight. To be sure, moving the seat back does help sometimes - I just rebel against the common reasoning that "it takes weight off the hands", and "it's where you'd be if you balanced without a saddle" because both reasonings are wrong even when the result is correct. It's a matter of overall fit, not weight distribution.

There's another thing that moving the saddle back can do for you. Think of the angle of your leg and the angle of the power stroke on the crank when you adjust it back (and usually lower to compensate). The power stroke begins slightly more counter-clockwise as a result, having the effect of pushing back against the body away from the bars. I think that's helpful. But it's not static as we'd expect with just weight balance considerations, but changing as we become more or less fit and can apply more continuous force to the pedals for example.

I think the whole point is the OP had a problem and there are several things that have worked for others to help correct that problem. For me it was a shorter stem on a Plush Roubaix type of bike and a straight seat post on a more agressive Tarmac. My Saddle to bar drop has been established and charted for years but minor adjustments have to be made based on the difference between bike like my klein, Jamis and Tarmac. Fit and balance go together as does fit and power delivery. Much of it seems to be a compromise. I have found the more fit I become the more agressive my set up can be. Over the holidays and long vacations that same fit suddenly doesn't seem as comfortable. (I will not dare to think why this happens) Then the more relaxed Klein is more comfortable.

Still balance can be a very good starting point and can be fine tuned for the individual. That being said I find that for most new riders saddle to bar height tend to be closer to level than advanced riders. So the first thing I suggest is make sure the saddle nose isn't down too much. So yes there are more than one solution but in most cases nose down causes people to push back against the bars and that is weight pushing on the bars. Still raising the seat post as the OP did without changing anything else has caused numbness. If what they have said is correct. So the obvious conclusion based on that information is they have to lean forward more to rest on the bars. Unless they are applying a death grip on the bars the solution would seem to be finding a way to take some of that weight off of the hands. My personal suggestion would be, check the saddle nose, raise the bars, make sure teh ramps are flat to the hoods. If it is a flat bar get bar ends.