Sjtaylor

Skipjacks

Move the seat back. That's counter-intuitive as you'd think that means you'd lean forward more, thus putting more pressure on the bars. But what it does is move your center of gravity back so you're not crammed up into the bars and moves your body mass to the seat rather than the bars.

Also don't lean into your hands as much. Seriously. Work on core strength and offload more your upper body weight onto your core, rather than onto to bars.

And get more cushy bar tape / grips. Or more ergonomic grips that fit your hands better.

And get alternate grip points. If you're using a straight bar, add bar ends of bolt on drops to give you a different grip position so you rotate the part of your hands that are tired.

Most importantly, get used to it. It's part of biking. You can minimize it but it's always going to be a part of biking the longer you ride.

rgconner

Hit the gym. Do core muscle workouts.

Bend your arms.

On the ride, consciously hold your torso up with your hips/back/stomach.

LOWER the stem even more. Paradoxically, you will hit a point where your back muscles are taut and it will hold you up instead of your hands holding you up.

Less effective: Try rotating the shifters, assuming you have drop handlebars, inward a little bit. I find this relieves some of the pressure on my hands. But that is in part due to shoulder injury, so it might not work for you.

WarrenR

My thoughts: numbness is caused by lack of blood flow. The blood flows through the underside of your wrist, when you're pushing on to that place you're restricting the flow. More cushion in that area without a place to allow the flow can be a bad idea. A lot of bike gloves build up the area on the sides to allow blood flow through the middle. I have trekking bars and after 3 or 4 hours I start moving my hands around putting the weight one side and then the other allowing flow through the middle. That's what works for me.

I followed all the above advice too

cynergy

on long rides i get this too when i ride my flat bar bike. when it's safe to do so, riding with no hands helps me.

Leebo

Go to an LBS, get a good bike fit, start there.

Lazyass

If you have squishy bar tape like most people do in this era of "comfort" everything then try cotton tape. That's all I use.

rgconner

Like lowering the handlebar to get weight off the hands/wrists, using non-squishy tape is a counter intuitive suggestion that works for many people.

ThermionicScott 

Same thing with gloves. Heavily padded gloves can lead you to keep your hands in the same position for too long.

Lazyass

It's not just that. Squishy gloves and bar tape can have the same effect that gel saddles have on your butt. There's a reason why no one uses those. Besides, cotton bar tape has the best grip, especially wet.

Milton Keynes

I've found that it helps to keep changing my hand positions.

PaulRivers

What helped me a lot was doing a "warmup" (I use the term loosely because if you're not already in good shape it's kind of a workout) routine called Limber 11:

It loosened some things up, and built up a little more core strength so I had the strength to support myself without putting on the pressure on my hands.

79pmooney

I find the exact angle of my wrists, especially when I am climbing out of the saddle, makes a huge difference. I set up a "new" bike last year with slightly different bars and hoods, but roughly what I have been riding the past 50 years. The bike was set up to be a mountain/gravel fix gear and I did a bunch of very hard riding on it. Started having hand problems, both numbness and pain, more in my right than left. (Not a surprise to me with my injury history.) Measured the heights of the hoods, thinking they might be better off if I slid them down a touch. Well, the right was higher than the left; something I didn't catch when I set the bike up. Slid the right down to match, then both a touch more. Better but now I was still having some issue, both in the drops and on the hoods, so I simply rotated the bars until my hands were happy. Now my other bikes are getting the same treatment. My bikes now do not look "classic"; on several the drops are past horizontal and the hoods are seriously low, but I have no more hand issues.

My advice? Remove the HB tape (except enough electrical tape to keep the cable housings in place). Go for rides with all the brake and stem wrenches (including a 6" crescent so you can actually lever the hex wrench to loosen/tighten the brake hood bolt. Adjust anything that can be moved/adjusted to feel better. Only when you feel you are seriously close, wrap your bars with cloth tape from plug to stem. Cloth because you can wrap and rewrap it repeatedly. More riding. Don't get the nice tape you want until that cloth is shot and you KNOW the bar/hoods are dialed in perfect. (And pay zero attention to the looks. Your wrist don't see and don't care. Numbness is almost always an issue with nerves, either in your wrists or the base of your palms from pressure against the nerves. That pressure can be from direct contact or from nerve proximity to bones so the numbness you feel may not be caused at the place you feel it.

Not a doctor at all. Just a rider who has been riding the dropped handlebar bikes half a century and about a year and a half of my life. That's given me plenty of time to think about this stuff.

Edit: a little coffee and reading the posts above have cleared my head a little. Numbness is, yes, probably lack of blood flow and tingling is pressure on nerves. But, my main point is that both are caused by pressure and both can be from pressure in areas not at the place where the symptoms are felt. And that pressure can be from internal things happening, not just external.

Ben

veganbikes

Get a bike fit and that will help greatly. Certainly a good set of Ergon grips for a flat bar and a nice seat of ergo drop bars with a flat top section ala my favorites the ZIPP Service Course SL-70 Ergos will do some help but if you are in the wrong position on your bike it can make a big difference to comfort. Moving your hands around and maybe doing some hand exercises can also help but again if you bike isn't well fit then you must acquit.

IvyGodivy

Gloves and even that doesn't work all the time.

jeffreythree

I had numbness in my hands, alleviated some by moving them around. I don't like the suggestion to move the seat back because that starts to screw with where you are over the pedals. I found this video and had an ah ha! moment: . Changed my bar setup up so my wrist is nice and straight and some wider bars to match my shoulder width better, and no more problems. It slso made long rides less tiring, I guess I was tensed up before. Easy enough to check.

79pmooney

Interesting - but - what he is espousing is exactly what causes real issues in my hands. I never noticed the symptoms he mentions re: elbows. shoulders, etc. I"ll have to pay more attention next ride. But my hand issues were very real and are now gone. So - sdon't take anyone's advice like it is the word from up high. Listen to your body. It knows.

Ben

CliffordK

Keep in mind that drop bars have changed over the years.

I like "aero bars" that are non-round at the tops. They give a much flatter place to grip the tops of the bars. Plus, they have a tight curve at the top of the drops, so that the brakes come out level with the tops of the bars. They are quite a bit more comfortable than the drops from the 70's and 80's.

avole

Don't overthink this. Forget modifying the bike, modify your grip every now and again. Drop bars are good, because they give you three different positions, and you should change between them regularly. Also, relax the tension in you hands; use your fingertips for the straight bits. Cycle with only one hand on the bars for a while, then swap to the other. Obviously don't do this if the situation demands otherwise, as in heavy traffic, descending a steep hill etc.

See

Flip Flop Rider

"Yahtzee"!

BikeLite

Changing hand positions is key. The numbness is usually a nerve compression issue, not blood flow. Hand positions that are perpendicular (straight bars) to the nerve make you more prone to nerve compression issues. That is why drop bars with hands on the hoods (place the weight between the thumb and first finger, thenar) causes less problems than straight bars where the weight is across the palm (perpendicular to nerve). Just my opinion.

MoAlpha

Well, it is a matter of blood flow within the nerve, but yeah.

Stormsedge

All of the above...but I had one particular set of handlebars that vibrated a lot causing some hand issues. I made a set of bar snakes from vinyl tubing and bb's that cut down/changed the level of vibration making it tolerable. ((Disregard if you are weight conscious))

fietsbob

take a hand off the bars occasionally?