Neck Pain while riding

Seemingly small changes can make a big difference, and they're not always logical.

For example, your neck pain might be caused by being too upright, which seems counter-intuitive.

I got a bike fit after I found lower back pain was limiting my comfortable riding to less than 45 minutes. Only change made? 10mm LONGER stem, which seems totally counter-intuitive! Did Ride London the following week, zero back issues.

There are so many variables when it comes to positioning and some people can cope with a range of fits better than others. For me, now I'm 50+, I find there's a very narrow window of acceptable comfort and endurance.

45 minutes might not sound like much, but it's infinitely longer than the zero minutes where you're coming from.  There's no point remembering how strong you used to be, you have to deal with the reality of your body as you find it now.  Ride for 30 minutes and stop.  Do lots more short rides for a month then work up to 45 minutes.  Someone who commutes to work each day is probably only doing 30-45 minutes twice a day and they'll be extremely fit compared to the rest of the population.  As a rule, each ride should be no more than 10% harder than the previous ride.  Expect to go backwards as well.  You will frequently get worse not better, so have to take a couple of days break when this happens.

At the moment your neck is your weakest link, as this gains strength, something else will become the limiting factor to your endurance,  like sore hands, or sore bum or getting cramps...  You have to just slowly work through each physical problem as it crops up.     This is all that athletes are doing in their  training - working on their weaknesses.

I found this book vey useful, as it has exercises for each region of the body: Cycling Anatomy by Shannon Sovndal.   

Don't worry - it's very early days and may take a while for your body to get used to this. Basically you may need to build up the time spent on your bike over a period of weeks and months...and that's assuming your bike fit is correct and doesn't need to change.

Unless you have a medical problem you will be ok though so don't stress 😊

There is hope!

I'm neither a coach nor much of a taker of my own advice, but I suggest lots of stretching from head to toe. Yoga might be very good for this - I've done a little and know a lot more would be beneficial, and not just the neck - the tightness of one muscle can be transferred to pain at the other end of the body.

Meanwhile, don't be a martyr to the bike fit. You should be able to go back to the fitter and get some advice, but if not, just get a more relaxed position - simple things like raising the bars with spacers, a shorter or riser stem, perhaps saddle slightly forward. Even riding more on the tops, or getting out of the saddle more frequently can help.

Riding will sometimes test your endurance and the pain you can cope with, but what you are going through isn't right and should not ruin the sport for you. And don't allow the desire for a whizzy, racey bike to do that either.

Good luck!