Pain in Hand
 

Hey Guys, first off thanks to everyone for all their help in me getting into road biking (i did get rid of my big box bike finally) .... I appreciate all opinions on the board....

Here is what I am feeling, I am riding a fitted road bike (Scattante, from Performance) and my palm is feeling a pain whenever I ride the bike, especially on the hoods. right by my thumb i feel some pain on my palm and am wondering if anyone has felt this??

I went through all this work and research to get a road bike and would hate to have to return the bike.... anyone have any ideas as to what i might need to fix??

For basic info: I am riding a 57 R-330... I am 5'10.5" ... 33 inseam (true inseam)...

I know that I was feeling some pain on the flat bars too, but this is a lot worse. I really love the bike, even if it is a started basic ride, I even got my wife a bike that matches so we can ride together.

Thanks in advance

Some good info here http://www.sheldonbrown.com/pain.html

I had my saddle too far tilted forward and tilting it back more relieved my hand issues. Are you riding with gloves?

Bend your elbows all of the time when you are riding your bike. Hand pain is usually caused by stiff arms pushing all of your upper body weight down onto your hands.

+1 on the weight distribution, locked arms and resultant hand pain. There are a lot of nerves running through your wrists and hands. When you have a lot of weight pressing down through them into the bars it pinches those nerves causing pain and numbness. Tweaking your fit and relieving the pressure is the way to go in most of cases.

Also, I'm not talking trash here BUT I know in my areas the Performance shops are good at entry price options but they are often horrid with actually fitting customers. Don't be scared by this though. I just mean that there are tweaks and setup choices they may not have done with you that you can now address and correct if need be. Things like stem length etc that IF are part of the issue you can most likely go back to them and have corrected w/ a swap out.

If there is a chance you can load a photo of you on the bike (preferably locked into a trainer) then some of the kind folks here can better help w/ suggestions...

The good news is you almost certainly don't have to return the bike. The bad news is that (1) your bike isn't completely fitted to you, and (2) it isn't always super easy to figure out how to fit it.

You have too much weight on your hands. Saddle position is the most likely culprit, probably it's too far forward. After you work through that, you might want to raise the bars a hair, and/or rotate them back. It's not as likely, but your brifter might just be a bad match for your hands.

Try turning your wrists in so your hand rests on the bar on the outside edge of your hand instead of the "valley" at the base of your palms. This helped me tremendously with numbness and pain

Sometimes the bike is properly fitted, but the rider just has poor posture or poor technique. Also, core strength (or lack of it) can affect your posture.

Such an amazing post by Danno, I saved the thread. Hope it helps: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...905-Numb-Hands

Yes, thank you. I was trying to find that to illustrate what I was trying to say but couldn't. I haven't had any hand issues since doing what is described in post #7

Very very true.

That is a very good thread. Need to be a sticky.

Whoa, that thread is very informative... I am going for a small ride in the AM with the wife, after that I am going to try and make some adjustments to the way I ride, I may go back to performance and get another fitting and see if that might help me out a bit... thanks guys

Ask her to watch your posture when you are riding and make sure that your elbows and shoulders are not too stiff.

Which palm, which thumb?

Both hands hurt... however I have been working on my posture to correct that pain ....