dumb question, but I have to ask, are you wearing some padded cycling gloves? and/or changing hand position as you ride? Both can make a big difference.

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Jay

No, I'm not wearing any gloves.

I don't actually have any proper cycling gear - I ride in my running shorts, my running shoes (need to get pedals and shoes that I can clip into so I can do more interval-type work standing up (my bf says I'll be able to get a better workout then....he's the triathlete so I kind of leave bike stuff to him) but I'm being cheap saving up for some trips to races).

I do change hand position, but it doesn't seem to help. Mind you, I probably only remember to do that after it's started to bother me.

This is the first time I've still had numbness the next day (just in the tips of those two fingers).

I will look for some gloves and work on changing hand position. Thanks!

A good glove should help. Make sure it's not too tight though. I went on a ride several years ago and bonked badly. I also did some serious Ulnar nerve damage from the pressure on my hands (not sure if the bonking had anything to do with it or not. Probably made me move around in the hoods less). Lost fine motor control of my left hand for MONTHS. Be careful with it. You might want to change your bike position a little. Throw some spacers in if you can to make you a bit more upright on the trainer and take the pressure off your hands. Also, make sure that you have a block under the front wheel to make the bike level. Going "downhill" on the trainer will put significantly more pressure on your hands.

Jodi

Jodi, thanks, those are great suggestions.

I am going to go get some gloves sometime this week. Wow, I will really take this seriously.

I'm sure I did something with the nerve, b/c I can feel it through my elbow and my back by the shoulder blade is tight. But I think it started in the hand.

We're going to look at my position. I'm embarrassed to admit while I've seen people talk about spacers I don't actually know what they are, but my bf will, so I'll mention it to him.

The other thing I was thinking - Peabody is currently not road-worthy, as she needs to be re-cabled and get new brakes, which we have the stuff for but haven't done yet. But anyways, as a result of that, I have a shitty tire on the front that is totally flat. That might be dropping the bike down as well and creating a slight downhill (probably very slight, but it might be making a difference). I have other tires that can be put on, we just didn't bother b/c it's not like the front tire's doing anything at the moment anyways, but maybe it's time to fix that.

I suspect, for whatever reason, you have a bit too much weight on your hands and/or aren't moving around because you're on a trainer. You're pinching a nerve, hence the problem. Gloves (try Specialized) and a fit should help with the matter.

I had a two days ride last summer of 180kms each ways. The numbness was so bad on one hand it lasted for a whole 2 weeks. I eventually changed my hands positions to make sure not to put pressure where I thought it was causing problems. I have been fine ever since.

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http://www.arthelenegirard.com/
Painting training always ...

You guys are making me think - Mayhew, I think that you are right that a lot of it will be fit. Though, gloves and working to keep changing position should also help. I am on an old school road bike, and to be honest, b/f my bf got this for me it'd been....16+ years since I'd been on a real bike (aka not a recumbent trainer) and I wonder if my seat is a bit too high - my legs feel okay but I always kind of do feel like I'm sloping or falling forward. Not a lot, but a bit. If I ride hands free I have to shift back and sit on the back end of the saddle only which is awkward. Maybe that's normal for bikes, I honestly don't know. I'll talk to my bf and see what he says but I think fit, fixing the front tire, and the gloves and being more aware should help.

....b/c I like riding the trainer, especially if I have something that's a little bit sore and want to get a low-impact workout in.

Last night I was riding b/c my hip was a bit sore (I fell on my hip on ice trail running without icers in mid-March (it was that time of year where some stuff was ice-free, so I took a chance, but the trail I was on wasn't ice-free) and it still bothers me sometimes where I get pain around the joint, and also sets off the IT band in my knee (my gp says I have bursitis)) and I didn't want to set if off. I'm glad I rode b/c my run into work this morning was good, and I'll be able to run after work okay, but I'm don't want to screw up the nerves in my arm trying to save impact on my lower body.

Thanks everyone for your help/suggestions!

no ideas... just wanted to say hi :-)

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Hi! :)

Hey, I saw you graduated, congrats! That's great :)

I'm doing okay....eating a bit all over the place matching life, but - working on a new medication regime - I couldn't handle being off my old med after 2 weeks of puking, I gave up and went back (45 minutes after taking some the nausea started to go away) so we're trying a low dose of it with another med to mood stablize. Still playing to get the right combo but I'm doing a lot better. Able to focus more on training which is really really good, and really really necessary!

Regarding saddle height*, check out this thread, specifically the first post and #46
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...post=1163166#1163166

Is the bike itself level? If not, get a book of some sort and put it under the front wheel.

Next up is fit and gloves and moving your hands around a bit (which is probably limited by the feeling of falling off the bike)

*(If you're like me you'll get the pleasure of walking into the room with nothing but cycling shoes on and a tape measure in hand and say "honey, I need your help with something")

Funny, I'm just talking to the bf and he said to get a book and stick it under the front.

We're going to do fit this weekend and he thinks the flat front tire isn't helping either. He's also saying that my sliding feeling isn't proper, so we'll look at that and how raised the front of the bike is.

I like how you ask for help! I'm going to have to steal that :) Who says biking can't be fun!!

Normally changing hand position will do the trick. I dont train with gloves- and of course I dont race with them. Theres just something about holding the same position on the trainer that makes it worse than actually being out on the road.
I wore gloves for a breif period when i first got my bike- didnt like them. I had to leave the velcro on the back completly open- or else it would cut off some circulation- and at that point, it just became a free moving layer between me and the bars. My specialized came with Bar Phat- or whatever they're calling it now. that stuff is fantastic- I reccommend it on any road bars you have. some sort of anti-vib tape, or the bar phat style gel will work wonders.
ideally, I think if you're holding correctly, and not squeezing too tight etc, your hands should be fine sans glove
just dont wait too long before you make the switch or change whatever is gone wrong- carpal tunnel is all over the place now.

Oh yeah! The bar tape trick is definitely a good one. I put some cushy bar tape on one of my bikes and it is fantastic. I totally get the bike glove distaste. I'm not a huge fan. The biggest bonus for me is having that "snuff box" piece of felt on the gloves to wipe off my snot...

Another tip...

I do a lot of intervals when I'm on the trainer. Within each interval I vary my hand position. Examples...

For a 5 minute interval I do 2 minutes in the drops, 2 minutes on the hoods, and 1 minute standing climb. It helps with numbness and to break the monotony!

:-)

Jodi

Thanks guys!

I might not've described the handles correct when I said they were upright - but they're the kind with grips, not bartape (I know, b/c I reeeeaaalllly wanted to get the pink camoflauged bar tape and the bf said you don't do that with the kind of handles that are on Peabody. Boo. (I did get streamers though, I'm super cheesy) But I will look into different grips, my bf also suggested that I pad the grips with my towel.

I still need to get clip-in pedals - but maybe I can vary position on the bike, and therefore with my hands, more than I realize with what I have now. I have a couple of Spinervals DVDs that I got last year for my bf (intervals and the Lake Placid course, since he's doing LP this July), but he has a computrainer now so I have them, though I haven't used them yet. I don't stand up or anything, I do change speed or gears to do intervals that way, but I'd like to be able to have clip-in pedals to get more variety.

My fingers are pretty well normal today - some weirdness in the tips but that's it. Still, if it's thundering tonight I'm going to want to ride but I will be VERY careful if I do so and stick a book under the thing the front wheel sits in (I really need to learn bike terminology!).

Does that bike ever leave the trainer?
If it doesnt- why not just get a cheapo 20$ road bar for it?
I used my uncles mtb a year ago for a "fat tire manditory" duathlon, and it had these awful specialized BG grips- supposedly ergonomic- did nothing but numb the shit outta my hands- they may have been ergo for a specific hand- but that hand wasnt mine. i swapped them out for my old (trashed) mtb grips for the race- point is- get a bar thats comfy if thats what this bikes designated purpose is. then you can get your punk... er pink camo tape, and set it up like your road rig. moving the seat back/forward/up/down could probably put you in a position thats nearly similar to your road ride, and you wont notice much difference at all

Right now, it doesn't leave the trainer. The brakes don't work :whistles:

My bf said it would be too expensive to fix everything wrong with it (it came from his mom's garage) and that I should just get a new one by the time we bought new brakes etc. Then he went to Canadian Tire to pick up a pump for me and discovered you can buy bike components for cheaper than tri/Cervelo stuff, so we got new brakes and cabling for....$30-40 I think. It just needs to be put on to make it road worthy.

I will try to keep a look out for cheap road bars too then! Maybe I can convince him to go to Canadian Tire this weekend to look for road bars since I want to go to the Petsmart and there's one next to it. And then I could get the bar tape! :grins:

I do want to ride on rail trails with the bike once I'm done my big race in July, since I'm a massive wimp about riding on roads, so I would like the bike to be road-worthy but I don't anticipate being super hardcore about it or anything.

I've had some good luck with Bontrager's padded bar tape. Did a 12 hour TT last fall and I think my hands were about the only thing not hurting afterwards. But there were lots of hand position changes during the day :)

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Jay

I've seen that....I think they're the people who make the pink camo bar tape, and even if they're not, I'm sure I could double wrap - even more padded then.

I'm thinking that might be worth trying. Online I found some handlebars for $60, but nothing at Canadian Tire, but it may not be on the website. I should look at Craigslist as well.

A few thoughts:

1. If I understand correctly, your bike has MTB style handlebars. If you're going to replace them with road bars, you're probably going to need a new stem as well - MTB bars are generally 25.4mm diameter, and road bars are 26.0 or 31.8mm. Not a huge deal to swap this part, but it'd be a pain to order a new set of bars, get everything disassembled, then realize that they won't fit in your stem clamp.

2. If you're thinking of double wrapping your bars, there are a few types of gel tape available to use as a base layer. Never tried it myself, but it might help.

3. Is your saddle level? If it's tipped down toward the front, that will increase your hand pressure.

4. In general, as bike fitness improves, your hands and arms do less of the work in supporting your upper body. Legs and core muscles start doing more of that job. So while you shouldn't ignore hand pain or numbness, you can at least take heart in the strong possibility that it won't always be an issue - as long as you can find a workable solution in the meantime.

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Over 4.5 years bike crash free.

Thanks XRayCharlie! Some stuff I hadn't even considered.

This is an old road bike, not a mtb, but I will check out the stem size as well and make sure everything matches up when I'm looking at handle bars. This may be why my bf thought 'fixing' everything on the bike wasn't worth it....

Not sure about the saddle - I think it is, and that the downward slope may be entirely on the front flat. I'll make sure we look at that when we look at the fit this weekend.

I think you are right about the bike fitness - my run fitness is good, but until my bf grabbed this bike and gave me his old trainer, I was riding on a super cheapo recumbent bike when the mood struck me - I got it when I had a tibia stress fracture, but that bike really sucked - it's highest resistance was easy and no matter how fast I rode at the resistance, I pretty well never got a cardio workout (though I gave it to my brother and he likes it, but different fitness levels). Which is a long way of saying that my bike fitness definitely has room for improvement! :)

Glad to be of help. As for the saddle tilt issue, I believe women are a little more tolerant of a little backward tilt to the saddle - or at least, there might be a little more margin for error than in a man's bike fit. The womens here might be able to confirm or deny this.

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Over 4.5 years bike crash free.

don't think you're out of shape. When you're outside, there's natural wind resistance which helps hold up your core/upper body.

It must be the wind resistance b/c the last time I did a core workout was probably a year ago!!

....well, maybe not that bad, but I don't even know when. Mostly for workouts I run, hike, and backpack, and this year I'm doing all trail races, including my scary race in July. Though, I have started doing weights again, not very regularly though.

Well, I rode for a 50 minutes tonight before my run and 10 minutes after (my 'stretching'....I'm getting better!).

We didn't have time to do a fit on the weekend but I put some books under the front wheel block and holy crap!!! What a difference!!!! I was sooo much more comfortable, in my hands/fingers and, this surprised me, in general. I enjoyed the ride so much more. I was able to ride hands free just sitting normally on the seat and it was no big deal.

So whoo! (I guess now what I really need to do is learn how to change a flat tire - it's kind of embarrassing that I don't)