Hand "problems" after long Brevet
 

I recently (Aug 1 to Aug 6) rode a 6X200k Brevet. That is, 200 to 220 klm per day for 6 days. Riding time on the bike from 10.5 hrs to 12 hrs depending on the altitude profile.
After finishing the brevet I experienced lost of dexterity and strength in both of my hand's fingers especially on thumb, index and middle finger that is continuing. I don't seem to experience numbness.
During the rides I was continuously changing hand position (on the hoods, on the top and in the drops) especially on the last 4 days.
I'm riding a Cannondale synapse.
Saddle level, saddle to handlebar drop 65mm
Cannondale padded bar tape and gloves with good padding.
Moderately aggressive riding position.
I don't experience any of these problems on shorter brevets 200, 300, 400.
Two years ago I did 1000klm Brevet and experienced the same situation. It took 4 months for by hands to completely recover.
I was considering changing to a flat profile handlebar or using aerobars to reduce the pressure on my palms.
Any info is appreciated.
YannisG

I solved problems like this by going to a longer stem and moving my fore-aft seat position to get more weight on my butt. I try to avoid padded handlebars because sometimes that presses the padding up into your carpal tunnel. Bike gloves have a gap there, but it's not always effective

I'm guessing your saddle to bar drop isn't helping you much here, you're probably putting too much weight on your hands. I would try adjusting the seat first.

My take on your situation is that as you progress into a very long brevet (or do several brevets back-to-back) your core muscles are progressively getting weaker -- which is normal. In other words, you start to rely more and more on your arms to support your upper body weight, with your hands taking the majority of the blow (i.e., pressure) as a main point of contact. The moderate-aggressive geometry of your bike is fine for moderate long brevets but for ultra endurance (anything over a double century or 400 Km) you need to consider a more upright, comfortable position on the bike. Is there room on your fork's steerer tube to raise your handlebar to saddle level? You can also try to invert your stem or buy a new one. Four months for your hands to regain their strength/dexterity is unhealthy and overtime it will have undesirable consequences if you would like to continue randonneuring.

By the way, we saw this same hands condition last year with one of the guys in our team who completed PBP on a bike with fairly aggressive geometry. He could barely open his hands in the end which was quite disconcerting. It took him three months of visits to the doctor and physiotherapy to recover.

I experienced something similar to this riding a 600K on an aluminum bicycle over quite rough roads. I padded the handlebars a bit more and got better gloves as an immediate step because I had the RM1200 a few weeks later ... and then early the next spring, I bought a steel bicycle.

Thanks for responding.
I can raise by handlebar about 3cm just by moving the spacers on the stem so that's easy to do on before long or back to back brevets. Also during this back to back brevet I rode on-off the saddle a lot to save my butt from blisters which might have put extra pressure on my hands during the off the saddle periods. Furthermore, there were some sections with very rough asphalt which may have contributed also to the problem even though I was using 700X25 tires at moderate pressure. As I mentioned in my post the same thing happened after a 1000k brevet two years ago where the recovery was slow, but w/o any physio. I'm concerned that eventually I'll do permanent damage to my nerves.
YannisG

It took a few months for my left hand to get back to normal after last year's PBP. I had padded bars without a great deal of drop, but I think the issue was that I favored one position (the drops) too much because I was nervous about the riders around me, and held my wrists with an excessive bend since I always had a finger on the brake levers. The left probably got hit harder because I use the front brake more, and had my right hand off the bars more often to shift.

Since then, I've done some tweaking to my setup to make the top positions more comfortable, with better access to the brake levers, and to ride with straighter wrists when in the drops.

Can happen.

There's always the Numb Hands post. If you're doing everything as described there, personally I'd not do long rides which cause this issue.

I ran aerobars on my brevet bike and think they really helped. Kind of silly not to, IMO, as long as you're not doing PBP that year. Just don't use them when drafting or cornering fast or any other potentially dicey situation. I like Syntace.

Thanks for the info.
Every 2 years there is alternately the 1000k and the 6X200 brevet that I'll continue to do as long as I can provided I find a solution to the finger problem. I probably will install aerobars because I do some long sections alone. In the 1000k you are mostly alone or with one or other riders. In the 6X200 you in a group for the 1st 15-20k every day, and you split up. So aerobars wouldn't be a problem. I have used aerobars in the past so they are not completely new to me.
YannisG

You can try raising the handlebars by 3.5 cm, but you might need them higher. A good rule of thumb is that while riding on you preferred position (usually the hoods), you should be able to take your hands off the handlebar for several seconds and feel completely balanced. If your upper body shifts forward, you're not balanced and will be putting pressure on your hands on long rides. Slightly increasing the nose of the saddle helps in achieving this balance -- as long as this doesn't make you more prone for blisters or saddle sores.

If you think you need a different stem to raise the handlebar even further, I use this online stem calculator to study what I need before purchasing one. As stems tend to be pricey, try Ebay first.

It sounds that given your severe saddle issues, you are finding relief by shifting your saddle weight onto your arms and mainly your hands. You will definitely need to look into a better saddle and/or shorts for your long brevets. Something down there is creating a lot of friction that eventually develops into blisters or saddle sores. Chamois cream also helps some people to reduce friction. And in case you do, do not shave in your nether area. For long rides, I mix my own formula -- Dr. Smith's diaper cream along with a little bit of Vick's. YMMV. Do you use a leather or synthetic saddle?

Yes, permanent damage is the main concern. As Machka mentions, try double wrapping your handlebars. Could you make your bike more compliant by installing wider 28mm tires? Let's not forget that a brevet is not a race. The goal is to finish within the time limit and without any major injuries to your body.

To summarize, IMHO, you will need to tackle the problem from several angles - handlebar height, saddle fit/shorts/chamois cream to reduce friction and making the bike more compliant with double tape and wider tires.

Now I'm wondering about the saddle problems. I kept changing saddles until I could ride without issues. I have trouble sometimes in the early season before my butt gets "seasoned," but this year even that didn't happen. I'm pretty sure that right now I could ride as much as I wanted and not have sores. This time of year I have problems with my upper thighs just because my shorts get soaked and that's a good recipe for abrasion.

The numbness can definitely be permanent. I used to worry about the numbness I got in my feet, so I worked on my shoes until that wasn't an issue any more either. I think permanent numbness in the hands is something I definitely would want to avoid.

Yannisg., how wide are your handlebars in comparison, say, to your shoulder width?

Thanks everyone for responding.
I'll try the balance test, but I'm sure that when I'm rested there is minimum weight on my hands. Its different after the klms accumulate. I have reduced my stem length from 110mm to 80mm to reduce hand pressure. As far as the butt goes I ride with good quality padded shorts, use butt cream, and used a anti-rash cream every evening after the shower. In fact, I replenished the butt cream after 100k every day. Four years ago I develop a awful blister on one side, and barely finished. Since then I have shimmed the cleat a little more on the rub side that seemed to help. This time my butt strategy worked well. In both cases I used a fizik aliante saddle (synthetic saddle). I have a Brooks saddle that I use on my normal rides, but I haven't used it on long Brevets. My handlebar matches by shoulder width, and my wrists are straight when on the hoods.
Many issues don't show up on short to moderate brevet distances so changes are hard to evaluate.
YannisG

Unless the angle of your torso changed significantly in making this switch, the effect was likely to increase hand pressure, not reduce it.

raise the handlebars, move the saddle slightly forward, and fit a Brooks Cambium C17 Carved saddle .... problem solved :thumb:

Steamer thanks for responding.
I ride a Cannondale synapse on the most of my brevets. It came with a 110mm stem. I felt I was too stretched out so I changed it to 80mm. All my other road bikes have stems between 80 and 90mm. I feel more comfortable with the shorter stem.
YannisG

If it made an overall improvement in comfort then I am sure it was the right move.

I have other comfort suggestions too but they are pretty well 'sideways', probably too much so, if you know what I mean (and few people would).

I asked about the handlebar width because I used to endorse the notion of the bars being as wide as my shoulders. I started with 420mm wide bars on my Fuji Touring way, way back, and have even tried 440mm.

But I noticed with those widths, and with a relatively short stem and with the bars at or just below seat height, I would end up with tingling in my little and fourth fingers and a small degree of wrist soreness. Generally, I found my hands resting on the bars so they pressed up in the furrow between the thumb and palm. I use unpadded gloves.

Long story short, I recently changed my handlebars for narrower ones. Originally, I wanted 400mm, but I found ordering on-line to be not as easy as it appeared... the sizings were measured differently between brands, and the flare on the ends muddied the issue. I bought a pair of 3T, but found them to be even a bit narrower on the hoods compared with a spare pair of Easton alloys I already had stored away.

In the end, I put the Eastons on, put a thin layer of foam padding across the tops, and completed a 400km randonnee with no sign of tingling or wrist soreness. The Eastons measured 395mm across the hoods, so they are probably close enough to the 400mm I was aiming for. My hands call more naturally to the outer sides of the handlebars.

Soooo... maybe have a look at narrowing your handlebars. 5mm can make all the difference in the angles that your hands address them.

Whenever members of this forum are asked what saddle they use for long distance, there seems to be a preference for leather saddles instead of synthetic. It doesn't mean that a synthetic saddle will not work for you, however. Having said this, if your preference is to have your handlebar lower than your saddle, there are saddle models that work better than others regardless of material. For example, the Fizik Aliante (synthetic) and Brooks B17 (leather) are supposed to be for cyclists with little flexibility which require their handlebars about level with their handlebars. If you're overall comfortable with your handlebar at 6.5 cm below saddle without lower back discomfort on long rides, you are quite flexible. So, it's possible that your current saddle shape and preferred handlebar height are not compatible causing the chafing and saddle sores issues. At any rate, just something to look into.

The other issue that can show up with longer distances is padding in shorts/bibs. It used to be, and I don't know if this still is the case, that riders in the long events changed out to an entirely different brand or model of shorts with a different pad to "move" the pressure points around.

Personally, I have never had to resort to that strategy, and don't anticipate having to. However, a clean, dry pair of shorts at the 600km point of a 1200 is something I had in my drop bag. I also haven't resorted to chamois creams at all, and my butt was hardened up for a while there to the point where I was peeling calluses of the area around the sitbones.

For riders with bars much lower than the seat, the Brooks Pro is supposed to be the best option instead of the B17. I did have a Pro when I started out on long randonnees, but it never really was right for me, mainly because the bars were level with the seat. The B17s have been best for me since then. I have done several shorter randonnees (up to 300km) on a Ti Brooks Swallow, which is more horizontal and race-like, and my jury is still out on that one (mainly because it is a bit narrower than the B17s).

Issues with the butt can exacerbate hand numbness because of the increased pressure on them as you try to reduce pressure on the butt.

Thanks for responding.
Handlebar width. On the previous 6X200 (4 years ago) I used my Trek with a handlebar width of 400mm ctc. I don't remember having a hand problem issue, but of course that was 4 years ago. On the 1000k (2 years ago) and 6X200 recently both with the Cannondale Synapse with a width of 410mm I had hand issues in both cases. So maybe yr right that the slight width change affects the pressure points. I have done quite a few long distance brevets several years ago on different bike w/o any hand issues. So maybe the aging has a major affect also.
Saddle options. I don't have saddle issues up to about 600k except minor chaffing on one side due to some asymmetric pedaling or leg length. On the recent 2X600 I rode off-on the saddle a lot on the flats or moderate inclines. This saved my butt, but might have put extra pressure on my hands.
Unfortunately, a lot of these issues show up after a certain distance. On a saddle change you would have to gradually work it into long distances. I was tempted to use my brooks on the 6X200 but hadn't rode on it more than 150k on a single ride so I went with the one I had used previously on long distances.
I'm considering using aerobars for my hand issues. However, they need a different riding approach when used with groups in Brevets. Also some on the roads here are in bad condition, and the handlebar would get crowded with a handlebar bag, lights etc. I have used them in the past, but never on a brevet.
YannisG

Also note that neck problems can cause hand numbness and pain.

Over the years one of my cervical discs flattened and bony growth developed on the left side which started causing numbness in a few fingers and pain above my elbow when I lay on my back without any neck support.

Supposedly the doctor could remove the bony bit if my problems didn't resolve on their own.

Thanks for responding.
A few years ago, I experienced numbness in pinky and ring fingers, and lost strength on my arm. This was related to a herniated neck disc. I did various sessions of PT, but eventually it needed time to get better (6 months). I only stopped riding for a week. During training rides or brevets I didn't feel much discomfort because the body was warm, but afterwards I did feel some discomfort.
Since then I do some specific neck exercises, and neck and shoulder strength exercises in the gym.
Since then I have not experienced any similar neck problem or Shermer's neck on long Brevets (600 or 1000k)
YannisG

Check the fit of your gloves. I have been having occasional numbness while riding and tried my gloves today with out tightening them. Nothing on a 100km ride over bumpy Cambodian back roads!

Thanks for responding.
My gloves are quite loose because the velcro doesn't hold them tight.
I have been using gloves with the best padding for brevets, but on long brevets > 600k my hands still suffer. I did an EMG recently that showed some nerve damage. Nothing permanent, but I was told to rest my hands for awhile.
YannisG

that isn't good. I would buy new gloves that fit even without the straps tightened. If they are loose, they will impinge on your nerves.

But I still think it's position