[Kenny Mc]

I just did my first ultra long ride on my new Fairlight Strael – it was Ride to the Sun, both ways (Edinburgh – Carlisle – Edinburgh: 325km). The bike is advertised as an endurance bike, so is the right bike for this sort of thing, but I had *really* sore hands during and after the event, and am looking for suggestions to avoid the problem in the future. My instinct is to go for bar tape with more padding and better gloves as the ones I wore are a few years old. My tyres were probably too firm too. Is there anything else i should look at? Any other common causes that people have identified? Any tips for long, long rides?

My hands were on shifter hoods most of the time, and the major discomfort was in my ring fingers and pinkies – I had some mild pins and needles in one finger for a day or two afterwards. So changing position more regularly would be another good idea, but it’s easy to forget to do this.

Topic

[AidanR]

There’s a good chance that you’re not getting on well with the shape of your hoods. Changing hoods isn’t easy so perhaps you could try changing hand positions on your longer rides – spend time in the drops and on the tops.

[Aluminium can]

I agree with ChasP. Moving saddle forward and backwards in small increments shifts balance/ load between hands and rear.

[ktache]

Not the easiest retro fit, but raising the bars can do wonders for a more comfortable ride, takes some weight off the hands. When setting up and building the Ultimate Commuter, after a very large amount of deliberation, finally opted for Jones h bars, he recommends going quite high to push more of the weight to the rear. Not fast, and displeasing to my eye large stack height, but for my hands, arms and back worthwhile for long rides. Far more than my low down aggressive early and late 90s XCs.

Maybe a more up angled stem…

[ChasP]

Compare saddle layback with your previous bike. Some people mistakenly move the saddle forward to reduce hand pressure but rearward allows better balance (maybe shorter stem as well).

[Terry Hutt]

Wide tires, appropriate pressure, new high quality gel gloves, double wrapped handlebars, suspension stem, carbon fork, most importantly AEROBARS.

The first 4 are relatively cheap and effective.

[jaymack]

You have a number of options from Tri-bars to riser stems and/or riser bars. Tri-bars will help relive pressure in all manner of places, Redshift do some that are easier to remove when not needed. I’ve gone for the riser stem & bar option and numbness is a thing of the past. More expensive options would include a suspension stem – again Redshift make a well reviewed product as do Ultimate Sports Engineering (USE)

[Backladder]

A few things you could try, they might not all apply or be suitable for you:-
raise your bars and/or shorten your stem, this will reduce the weight on your arms but increase it at the other end.
Double layer your bar tape, just slightly thicker won’t make much difference, make sure the inner layer is wound tight.
Lower tyre pressure, better still larger tyres with even lower pressure if they will fit in your frame.
Suspension stem – google for reviews to see if you might like one.
Lose some weight, less weight equals less weight on your hands.

[Author]

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