Laly

Hi all, I've been cycling for a few weeks now and on the last couple rides I've been having some pain in my thumb joints, & the next day theyve been extremely painful & stiff. I'm riding a mountain bike with straight bars. I've finally got the seat to a nice height and feel like the brakes etc are in a good place where I'm not reaching (I have fairly small hands, even for a woman). I'm using grips with supports and wear padded gloves. Only thing I can think is that my gloves have slightly loosened with use and feel like they are moving a lot, could this cause enough slipping to cause this much pain? Obviously my other concern is that my weight is just too much on my hands? I really hope i can find a solution as cycling has been a real life changer for me! Thanks in advance x

delcrossv

You may want to try raising the bars to take a some weight off your hands first. Is the pain at the heel of your thumb or the middle joint? If the latter you may be gripping the bars roo hard.

Laly

If its the bars then that's a pain as they are up as far as they go :-\ It is the middle joint I think right by the webbing, and definitely possible I'm gripping too hard as I'm still a bit nervous, especially going downhill, I'll keep an eye on that.
Thanks for the reply :-)

sstorkel

Could also be that you need to adjust the position of the controls. You want them to be accessible with your hand in a "natural" position. If you have to bend your hand into an unnatural position for long periods of time, it can cause pain or numbness.

psalm

Yeah, sounds like you might be gripping to hard. Try riding without gloves. I know it sounds off, but you'd be surprised.

Laly

I might have a try without gloves this weekend, should thought of that really. Good way of working out if its the gloves slipping eh? Duh! Lol. My partner had offered to get me some ergon grips too, the current ones are halfords rubbish which are falling apart already.

L x

Huskysibe

I agree, maybe try relaxing your hands a bit. You may not realize you have a death grip on the bars, I know I used to do that.

jsigone

bars with more backsweep might be neeeded. I'm in love with Niner RDO bars

Laly

I just asked my partner (he's my bike mechanic! lol) and he says that we can turn my bars for a bit more back sweep so will try that after i've got my new Ergon grips which we ordered yesterday. My bike is a bit of a Frankenstein as its a cheap frame with all the bits he took off of his hardtail when he bought it...might get some more soon as he's just bought a new full sus, very pretty!
Thanks again everyone for the advice ill be trying a bit of everything over the next few rides xx

Laly

Just a quick update. Still having some pain but I think its residual from first injury. I'm almost certain now that I was gripping like mad and not realising it & on grips that were too fat for my hands. Now I have my Ergon grips and am being conscious of how I'm gripping its definitely better.

Thanks again for all of the help guys x

WonderMonkey

Working on your core to keep weight off your hands helps but that is over a period of time. Changing your hand position frequently can also help. Do you have bar ends? I added those to my hybrid and it really helped.

Cognitive

Death grip does not begin to describe it for me :-) I had good luck with gloves that have serious palm side padding from my LBS (Bontrager something). But as others pointed out, relaxing the death grip is paramount, and also 'excercising' by making a fist and squeezing then unsqueezing while riding (if you learn to ride one handed of course, I can do right hand only but not left hand only).