Road Fan

So this for my wife - she has a cervical disk pressing on a shoulder nerve root, but she wants to keep riding her bicycle. It's a Terry Cote de Donana, with bars/saddle set up as a road bike, and 48 mm tires. She loves it! I could make her a great, comfortable Trek 720 city/touring bike, but she loves her Terry.

She's under medical care to reduce the inflammation, so that's all good. The doc's opinion about cycling is that it's positive but we need to decrease her hip flexure angle so her back sits up a little higher to reduce her neck flexing. The existing drop bar, an FSA Compact bend, will be repositioned so the drop and braking hand positions will be acceptable. Hoping this works out, because we don't have a good idea what new bar and its positioning should look like. So that's decent philosophy, but now the question is, how much to raise her shoulders and modify her reach? Well, I'm going to put her and her bike on the Wahoo KickR and raise her shoulders to see when the neck pain reduces to "nearly gone." Initially at least her bars will be her same FSA Compacts complete with Athena 11 Ergopowrs and brake levers, so we only have to worry about her new hand position, not new Campy gear control trade-offs or compromises.

Road Fan

Trip to the pain clinic results in recommendation to reposition her bar for a less-extreme tilt-up of her head, and a less-extreme torso angle. It was about 59 degrees in her usual setup, and we can get it to about 70 degrees by raising her drop bars up about 8 cm. So how I have to look for a threadless steer tube extension, and possibly a hinged stem to be able to fine-tune the 'bar position.

I'll need to make new cables to accommodate the higher bar, but all the existing controls will be retained, for the time being.

Juan Foote

It would be advisable to find the best quality hinge stem that you can. I used one some years ago that actually broke on the hinge bolt and nearly caused me quite a crash. I was very lucky to be able to steer still, if not actually use the bars to lean on and was able to limp back home. I cannot recall the brand, and noted when looking at them online (just now) that the hinge part on most models has been moved back to the "stack" side. The one I used was in the middle of the riser.

I hope your wife can find some relief. My wife had a "cyst" that was impinging nerves at the base of her spine and hip. Went in to have it removed which was supposed to be a shoe in for relief and it did nothing but cost money and add a new scar. She has been unable to mount her bike for several years now.

mdarnton

I don't know if this is really helpful, but.... I have a couple of shoulder problems and one needs to be replaced. I find that switching positions a lot really helps me keep my shoulder loose and pain-free so I bought myself a set of butterfly (touring) bars. They position both closer and higher, which might be good for her, and have a LOT of positions you can use. The one hitch is that the ones I got are mountain bike sized--I don't think that road brakes would fit and you'd have a hard time finding a good place for them, anyway.