Thread: Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!

Greetings one and all.

I am in need of some guidance. As I wrecked my shit pretty badly at Trestle yesterday (on the steepest, gnarliest section of Green World...) I am looking for a scapegoat for my poor performance, and I'm going to have a while to sit and stew while my ribs and hip heal.

So here's the situation. I bought and built up a large Solstice frame a few months back. Looks like the attached photo, except with a lyrik up front. I'm coming from a 2000 or so RM Element Race (80ish mm of travel), so I figured it was going to take some time to adjust to completely different geometry, more weight, slack head angle, twice as much travel, etc. I've taken it on 15 or so rides around the front range, and while it climbs like a champ, I'm getting ridiculous pain in the outsides of the palms of my hands on descents, and I start to feel out of control and out of position. Feeling slightly awkward on the bike definitely contributed to my crash.

My initial thought is that maybe my hands are too low relative to the rest of my body (no room for headset spacers and i guessed when ordering bars--700mm Holzfeller WC w/ 15mm rise), and as a result I am putting too much pressure on them on the downhill. Another possibility is that I went from an XL frame w/ a long XC stem to a L frame with a 70mm stem, so maybe that is putting me in a weird position (I'm 6'2).

Anyway, I feel like if I get this bike set up right its going to rock my world, but before I go spending more money on high-rise bars, different stem, etc. I wanted to get some opinions. Anyone else have the hand pain issue? I always wear gloves w/ thick gel pads on the heel and have Oury grips. Thoughts on how to assess the situation?

Thanks

Make sure your brake lever positioning is perfect.

Yeah, I was aware that that can cause problems so I have been fiddling with it recently. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the source of my issues...thanks though

Make sure you have plenty of Stans in the rear tire, and shave those side knobs all the way down

Originally Posted by Skipig25

Make sure you have plenty of Stans in the rear tire, and shave those side knobs all the way down

Oh, we'll played, sir. As a matter of fact I used my side knob shavings as a pizza topping just this very eve! The bitterness of rubber was an excellent complement to the sweetness and acidity of the garden-fresh heirloom tomato sauce.

Another vote for brake lever position. I had a friend help with mine and we moved the brake levers a fair bit down so I was more pulling up than back. Also, make sure you're elbows are bent and out. That will rotate your hands in just a little. If you do that you will be able to use your arm muscles more to stay on versus your hand muscles. Arm muscles > hand muscles.

Also make sure the brake lever is far enough away from the grip. Mine were almost right next to the grip. Move them in towards the headset so your braking finger rests right on the end and uses the little lip on the end of the lever to stay in place.

It's somewhat hard to explain with just words, but I went through the problem of sore hands recently. My friend gave me these for adjustments and it's made a word of difference.

Wide bars are also really helpful. I rocked a AM bike last year with "normal" handlebars. I bought a DH bike over the winter with super wide DH bars. They are amazing.

I just recently switched geometry with a new build and it raised a few lower back issues. My suggestion, ride it hard for a few weeks, see what your body will adapt to, and what other issues might crop up. I switched in some longer crank arms, wider bars and a shorter stem. Sooooooo fucking stoked on it now.

Since it sounds like you are already tweaking brake lever position here's a few other suggestions:
1. remember the 'light hands, heavy feet' mantra, takes a lot of pressure and stress off your hands and helps your riding.
2. try a wider, higher rise bar. I've got big hands and wide shoulders and use to get really sore spots on the ouside heel of my hands from gripping the end of the bars so far out that the grip lockrings were bruising my hands. Chromag OSX and RaceFace Atlas have worked well for me, Chromag is a bit higher rise.
3. Maybe try some larger grips that have better damping properties like ODI Rogue or Oury lockons.
4. This may seem counter-intuitive but ditch the gel/padded gloves. I used to use them and they caused nothing but problems, hand pain, calouses, blisters, and I think they have a kind of dead feeling that forces you to grip the bar much tighter than you shoiuld have to. Track down some gloves with a single layer of durable leather for the entire palm and fingers or just pick up some Mechanix gloves or something similar from a hardware store. I can't overstate how much I hate padded gloves after using them for far too long.

Thanks, everyone. Hope you recover from your trestle mishap quickly, mbizzle. Sounds like maybe some bars with more rise would be helpful, and ill try messing with the brakes some more.
interesting suggestion about ditching the padded gloves, catch22. It's a bit counterintuitive, but ill try it out. I am actually using oury lock ons, which are really nice.

On the subject of wider bars, I do have road shoulders, but won't they force even more of my body weight towards the front of the bike?

Broad shoulders, that is

Originally Posted by TagoMago

I'm getting ridiculous pain in the outsides of the palms of my hands on descents,

My initial thought is that maybe my hands are too low relative to the rest of my body

When in the saddle and pedaling, this would show up as palm-heel pressure if your saddle is too nose-down in profile, and as lower back flexibility discomfort if the saddle tilt is okay.

It's also possible that the bar sweep is funky for your anatomy. Where is your bar positioned in a rotational sense? The bar can rotate within the stem's clamping zone. As you rotate the bar, upsweep and backsweep will change. Can you play with this easily? Sure! You can find the limits of comfort on your present handlebar that way. Might be you want more sweep. Or less.

Palm-heel pressure might suggest you want less sweep. Might.

If you have this pressure only when descending, it suggests you are too tense.

Originally Posted by TagoMago

I always wear gloves w/ thick gel pads on the heel and have Oury grips. Thoughts on how to assess the situation?

Thanks

Padded gloves + Ourys = too much smoosh in there, which can cause discomfort much in the way a car's too-soft driver's seat will bug your ass & lower back on a long drive. Ourys are tough if you don't have huge paws. Gel gloves are generally a bad idea, IMO.

Brake lever position (inboard/outboard, and relation to horizontal) and reach (lever to grip) might cause the discomfort you're experiencing, but I'd be surprised. Unless it's really far off. Lever position being wrong usually is felt in the wrists. Reach being wrong usually is felt as cramping in the fist-making-apparatus (finger muscles/tendons, forearm muscles).

...and as to wider bars: sure, it's a big triangle -- the handlebar is one side, each arm is another side. The triangle is flat / truncated at your torso. Widen the bar, your torso gets closer to the bar. Generally a shortening of the stem length brings things back to a more familiar feeling. Bar width being too narrow isn't causing your hand discomfort, though.

Creaky Fossil, thanks. The pain is only there when I am out of the saddle descending. In the saddle peddling feels totally fine. A little lower back discomfort, but that's to be expected, especially considering that I don't usually get to ride more than twice a week.

I have the bars oriented in such a way as to give max rise, so its entirely possible that in doing so I put my hands in a strange position. Like I said, never had this problem with my old ride, but these newer bars have more sweep to them.

As far as being tense, though its arguably a chicken and egg scenario, I feel like I am maybe forcing the issue as a result of feeling out of position and in pain, as opposed to being in pain and out of position because of being tense, ya know? Descending is generally my favorite part of any given ride, so its been a serious bummer struggling to get down long, fast descents. Particularly when I am on what is basically a freeride bike...

So based on the consensus here, I'm going to get some non-padded gloves (and possibly smaller diameter grips), fiddle with the positioning of my bars, and if that fails, pick up a set with some rise and see if that changes things. Unfortunately its probably going to be at least another week before I can ride again. Bah

Thanks again to everyone. I appreciate the input

Originally Posted by TagoMago

Creaky Fossil, thanks. The pain is only there when I am out of the saddle descending. In the saddle peddling feels totally fine. A little lower back discomfort, but that's to be expected, especially considering that I don't usually get to ride more than twice a week.

I have the bars oriented in such a way as to give max rise, so its entirely possible that in doing so I put my hands in a strange position. Like I said, never had this problem with my old ride, but these newer bars have more sweep to them.

As far as being tense, though its arguably a chicken and egg scenario, I feel like I am maybe forcing the issue as a result of feeling out of position and in pain, as opposed to being in pain and out of position because of being tense, ya know?

I get it. My point was really that your hand discomfort isn't due to the saddle height vs bar height difference if it only happens when you're off the saddle.

Definitely if something in the setup is causing hand discomfort, it's going to be really tough to not be tense when descending. Sounds like you're on the road to sorting out the various possible causes.

One thing that could cause it if it's just while descending is your fork's adjustments. If rebound is too slow, you can get fork pack-up and then it can feel like someone's jackhammering your hands from the bar side. Sometimes this can happen if you have too much compression damping, and/or too much psi (if air fork) or too firm a spring (if coil fork). You can rule out the fork by simply descending on a trail that's pretty buff, and noticing whether there are any hand discomfort spikes when you hit the occasional trail obstacle.

Good luck.