this is so awful
there are seven things that can cause you to have numb hands on a bicycle
in today's video we're gonna go through all of them and uh
james is currently experiencing them all at once you can stop now
most off-the-shelf bikes come with handlebars that are way too wide so if you consider that
the average man that we measure in here is measures between 39 and 41 centimeters across
the chromium process look at the video down here for a video on how to measure your handlebars but
if you think about the average size handlebar that comes on an average size bike is 42 centimeters
rendering a 42 centimeter too wide for most people if you consider this nobody stands
like this john wayne maybe so why would we want to ride a bicycle like this the common compensation
for uh have a ball that is too wide is for us to roll the wrist like so as a means of aligning the
wrist with the shoulder blade what this typically does is put undue pressure on the ulnar nerve and
that typically cuts off circulation to the hands slight disclaimer of this video fundamentally numb
hands is caused by having too much weight on on hands all of these things combined will typically
cause issue but the the the number one the key here is to relieve the pressure from
hands they shouldn't have too much weight on your hands halibut width
is a major driver if it's too wide then it can it can result in numbness but if you've got a
pretty good position in the first place then it renders the handlebar choice less important
due to the nature of how we like our bikes to look uh we typically like long stems and most road
cyclers seem to want to be contortionists uh an excessive reach to the handlebars can also drive
excessive pressure on the hands which in turn will result in numbness so what we want to be doing
is well frankly we don't want to be doing a plank and riding a bicycle at the same time the further
the handlebars are away from you the more you're going to have to potentially engage your core
actually there are elements of your ql that aid in sustaining your torso angle so it isn't
all about core frankly if the reach is too long that's almost always going to result in excessive
weight on the hands cue numbness you can reduce the reach in many ways you can reduce it with
optimizing the control location on the handlebar you can change the handlebar not all uh reaches
are the same on handlebars so uh the reach is the the distance from where the control is located
to where to the center of the ball so this distance here uh this this metric can change
by up to 50 millimeters so you know that can alter the the reach too from the from the saddle to
the controls by up to 50 mil uh you can change the stem you can also play with saddle setback
very often used as a means of altering the reach something that is worth considering is that when
you alter the horizontal placement of the saddle in space you influence weight distribution so the
further forward you run the sample the more you you tend to throw the weight of the rider into
the front of the bike there are considerations that need to be made when altering saddle setback
particularly uh rider morphology so if you've got an individual with a very large head
they're going to typically need more saddle setback riders with long torsos like myself
again more saddle setback or risers within pinched hips and shorter torsos
less setback however if you're going to slam the saddle really really far forward on the rails
it's going to throw all of your weight into the front of the bike so if this is something
you've done recently then it might be worth thinking about running that saddle slightly
further back but what you might need to do at the same time is reduce the reach accordingly
one of the very common uh changes carried out to cells to improve saddle comfort or
relief gentle issues is to increase tilt now when you put apply a lot of
tilt of a saddle you create a slope what happens when you put something on a slope
what tends to happen is you fall from those of the saddle and you brace with your hands
it's throwing it's throwing all of your weight into the front of the bike try and keep your
saddle as level as possible uh if that is causing you issues have a go at lowering it
when the saddle's too high it typically results in a postural engagement with the hamstrings and
has the uh impact of throwing you into the front of the bike frankly saddle height i've
got a bit of v in my bonnet about and it it is one of the primary causes for pain and cycling
uh i'm talking knee pain uh foot issues numb feet all this kind of stuff so
i mean don't raise it higher i can't even get on that
okay this is what my customers built oh my god and i've really hurt myself here
come on when the saddle height is excessive it tends to result in throwing the rider into
the front of the bike uh so again have a go at lowering a little bit
a little bit of time five ten mil at a time and see if that improves things
saddle selection is less important than people make it out to be there isn't one saddle to rule
them all you can probably ride a multiple a a number of saddles with a reasonable degree of
functionality and comfort however if the saddle is too wide and it results in you gravitating to the
nose in order to clear the width or if it's too narrow or frankly if it's just the wrong shape and
it doesn't provide your pelvis with sufficient support then you're going to end up with
too much weight on your hands uh what we're really looking for is a 75 to 25 percent um split between
saddle and front end so we're looking for a 75 of your weight to be through the saddle and support
through the pelvis and 25 through the front of the bike i mean if i'm honest with you realistically
if you're riding at threshold you should your torso should be really should be weightless not
always achievable with everybody but for most people you should be able to take hands off the
handlebars not change your saddle position and not really change your cadence either contrary to
many common beliefs uh i'm actually reducing sabot width these days uh and something i find and it's
mostly thanks to big american bike manufacturers for measuring sit bones i i don't feel that sit
bone measurement has a huge amount of relevance and what we do tend to find is that it tends to
result in an excessive saddle width and as a result when you have a watercolor that's
too wide for you typically what riders do is they they catch the wings of the saddle here and here
and one you know it's human nature to get away from that so one way of remedying it
is to sit further forward onto the saddle uh my best-selling saddle is the cell italia slr boost
s3 i sell these things like hotcakes and strangely curiously it's one of the narrow cells on the
market less than 130 millimeters wide across the widest point even we even sell i mean we sell
the the nat the wider version and it we sell the narrower version at a ratio of about ten to one
loads of pressure relief so it's got a much bigger pressure relief channel so there's a
much higher likelihood of you actually hitting it particularly for individuals that kind of list off
to one side and don't necessarily hit the pressure relief channel 100 it's relatively short saddle
but i i don't really know exactly what it is but almost everybody i put on one of these absolutely
loves it myself included and you actually as well you quite like these don't you yes
the general consensus with crank length is that shorter is better my finding suggests
otherwise you're not always looking for shorter furthermore shorter crank length does not equal
higher cadence better functionality equals higher cadence that can be achieved with a longer crank
so if you've got a very very tall rider riding 165 millimeter crank i wouldn't mind betting you've
got a lot of weight on your hands one of the things i find and i'm not entirely sure why but
when you have a crank length that is too short or insufficient then it tends to
result in the rider sort of spilling over over the crank and falling into the front of the bike
if you're a taller than average rider and you have a relatively short crank 117 165 or even
shorter millimeter crank on your bike that could be the reason why you're getting numb hands there
you go that's the seven things give that a go if you're getting numb hands on the bike
thank you for watching this episode of bike fit tuesdays i'll put a link to james's shop in the
description down below if you'd like to book a fit with him if you have any questions or suggestions
for future episodes of bike fit tuesdays put them in the comments and thanks for watching