At the end of a 4hour bike yesterday I started getting a lot of pain in my trapezius(sp?), the muscle right below your neck and between the very top of your shoulder blades (the shrug your shoulders muscle, I think). It really hurt for the ride and for the rest of the day.
I am trying to figure out the cause and how to fix it. Choices are
a) I was riding most of the time with my arms locked on the hoods and leaning forward putting too much weight on my arms and somehow this caused the problem–SOLUTION: strap some aero bars on and periodically rest by lying down on those bars
b) My neck is not very flexible so looking up is what makes it hurt–SOLUTION: Do NOT put the aerobars on there because then the neck craning will be worse and the problem will be even more painful.
Take a couple “stretch” breaks during your long rides. That definately helped me. Also while riding, rotate your neck around from side to side and stretch your neck muscles while riding. Maybe crane your head down while looking at the ground to stretch!
Do you give the bars a good “death grip”?? I noticed at the beginning of the season when I did that with group rides/races, I would be very sore between the shoulders and neck towards the end of the ride. I learned to ease my grip on the bars and in turn it relaxed my shoulders. Maybe you should also consider riding the tops for a little while during your long rides. That’s a good relaxed position where you don’t have to crane your neck so much.
and one more thing. Maybe your hoods position on the bars is too low. You might want to raise your bars an inch, and when you need to get aero, you can use the drops. Do you ever find yourself using the drops?? If you don’t, your bars might be too low.
You aren’t alone. I cannot ride a road bike for more than 1.5 hours without this same pain. However, I can ride a time trial bike for 4-5 hours! The TT position simply doesn’t hurt my trapezius muscles. I constantly glance up and look right back down on my TT position, and I have a stiff neck. However, riding this way, I’m fine for a long time.
I get the same pain, and for me it’s (a). For me, the solution has been to vary the position from the hoods to the drops to the tops. When in the hoods, ride like you see the pro’s riding, with some bend in the elbows, very little body weight on the arms, and a light grip on the hoods. This keeps you from locking your arms and tensing up your shoulders, and it forces you to ride with your weight more balanced.