Bought a bike after not having rode one for a decade or so. Just riding gravel trails for now since im really out of shape. After about three miles of riding my hands get numb with the pins & needles feeling. Bad form? Wrong size bike? Or maybe just fat & out of shape đ
by Decent_Artichoke_678
31 Comments
Your seat is too low. You are pedaling in the middle of your foot. Iâd advise gloves for actual MTB riding youâll do. Are you death gripping the bars?
Definitely too small
Your saddle is too low which is probably leading to a mismatch in body weight between your hands, feet, and butt. So start there.
Then Iâd look at bar roll. I personally get hand pain when handlebars have âupsweepâ, so I roll them so that they donât point upwards at all.
I also really donât like handlebars with less than 17° of backsweep. Most stock handlebars these days are 9°. Itâs personal preference though.
Are those stock grips? Those are usually pretty barebones, and a good set of grips helped me.
Also, I kept adjusting the angle of the brake lever until i found whatâs most comfortable for me. This was most impactful.
The best thing you can do is get professionally fitted at your LBS.
Start with a bigger bike.
That bike is miniature, you shouldnât be riding it like a BMX bike
Youâre pretty tall, You appear to need a size Large possibly XL bike.
If nothing else, adjust your seat up until you can straddle it and stand on tip toes.
There is a lot going on in these photos. The bike looks too small for you and the seat post is definitely too low. But that would usually put a lot of strain on your knees more so than your hands. Anyways, I would take the bike back and get one that is more suited to your size.
As for hand pain, you could try swapping out the grips. I have some Ergon grips that I find really comfortable, and highly recommend them.
Lastly, I don’t want to be insulting, I just want to rule out everything. But the shocks on the fork aren’t locked, right?
Your saddle is far too low. Get it to the right position and the bike will likely fit.
And move your brake levers inboard. Adjust the lever reach as needed for comfort. You should have just your index finger on the hook at the end when you extend them naturally. Your current lever position puts your finger in the wrong spot and will encourage multi-finger braking, which’ll cause grip problems.
Means your hands are gonna drop off, mate. Shouldnât have touched yourself before marriage.
But for reals, I got this when I began to suffer with carpal tunnel.
Higher saddle, longer stem should help. Ask in the bike shop you got it from if they can replace the stem free of charge or at least a discount.Â
The bike might be too small, but treks are a bit oversize in my experience. Mine is a medium and is a tad large for me, I’m around 176cm, so play around before switchingÂ
5â10 on a med Trek shouldnât look this small. Even with the seat being so low.
Bike too small
I got the Ergon grips with the palm support, I use them to kinda force my wrists into a good position. Idk if itâd work for you but it helped me.
Ergon GS1/GP1 grips have helped a lot with my hands going numb while riding. They have wings that add some palm and wrist support and help keep your hands in a more natural position.
I still get numb hands if I ride long enough, but it’s a lot better than before when I used more traditional cylinder shaped grips.
Seat needs more come up you should only have a slight bend in the knee when pedaling, get some higher rise (taller) and wider bars and some better grips, I like ergons theyâre chunky and comfortable.
Thanks all. I’ll start with adjusting the saddle and go from there. Guess I’ll step up to a large if it doesn’t help
You seat height looks a little low.
You might try either rolling the bars, what I mean is if the bars are angled at the grip ends adjusting them forward or backwards will alter the angle of you wrist and palm.
Adjusting the angle of the brake leavers is also an option..
Bike too small. Seat too low. Saddle needs to be close to level.
Pins and needles in your hands means your neck is pinching your nerves. I have this after a bad MTB crash and years of bad posture at the computer. Once you get older you gotta also do exercises in order to keep riding.
When you lower your head when riding thatâs what does it.
Besides moving your seat higher you need to also work on your upper body and posture so it doesnât get worse. When you riding you not supposed to put all your weight on any of the 3 points of contact: hands, seat, pedals. The weight supposed to be evenly distributed among all 3. So if you are riding, in any position think and feel the weight distribution on your body and the bike. If something feels like itâs carrying more weight, redistribute it more evenly.
You would want to raise the seat. Move you chest forward and up. Bend elbows so you are not reaching, your back should be straight with an inverted curve.
Bike looks like it’s probably an okay size. With your position, you’re very upright, but the saddle is too low.
In this position, numb hands shouldn’t be happening. Check your saddle to make sure it’s level. You can do this fairly easily by just hopping off the bike and picking something you know in the background is level and look at the saddle. Ignore the nose and back of the saddle, since those typically have a bit flare to them, but look at the middle portion. My suspicion is that the saddle is nose down and it’s throwing you into the bars. It doesn’t need to be off by much to get this to happen either.
Next thing to look at/consider. Foot on the pedal. You want the pedal spindle (the part that attaches the pedal to the crank arm) to be more under the ball of your foot instead of in your arch. If you look at your shoe, the spindle should be at, or a little behind, the widest part of the shoe.
Saddle Height. The ballpark method of this is to place your heels on the pedals and adjust the saddle height until your leg is pretty much straight at the bottom of the pedal stroke without you needing to rock your hips to reach that point. Go back to pedaling normally and have someone look if you’re really pointing your toe down, when you have good foot placement on the pedal. Ideally you want your foot to not point down very much at the bottom of the stroke.
When all is said and done. On that frame. Your saddle should be about level with your bars.
If the saddle is a lot higher than the bars, that’s probably a good indication the bike is too small. If the saddle is a lot lower. Decent chance the bike is too big. Right now you’re riding the bike like it’s too big.
Things to consider –
First, when you’re riding, what do you notice first between your hands, feet, and butt. If you notice your hands first, that indicates you’re putting too much pressure on them and your probably looking at a saddle or pedal issue. You can check by repositioning your feet and see if that improves or not. If not, then look at the saddle. When you are thinking about your butt, do you feel two distinct points of contact with the saddle, or is it sort of an “in the middle” sort of feeling. If you don’t feel two points, try scooting back on the saddle until you do. If you continually find yourself repositioning to get that two points sensation, then you have a few likely reasons. First is the saddle is too wide and you’re gravitating to the nose to clear your legs of the saddle wings. Second is the saddle is tilted nose down and you’re sliding onto the nose. Third the saddle is too squishy, if it has a lot of padding, you’ll lose sensation and it’ll cause problems for you down the trail when you start going on longer rides. Fourth is the saddle is too far back on the rails, this isn’t typically the case with MTB if you have the saddle centered in the seatpost clamp, but it is possible. Fifth, saddle is too high and riders will gravitate to the nose to get extra reach to the pedals. Or some combination of the above.
The ultimate goal is to have all three contact points with the bike feel about the same. You should notice your feet a little like you do while you’re walking, you should feet pressure on your hands, but not like you’re holding up your torso, and you should feel your butt, two distinct points, like you’re sitting on a bleacher bench.
There is a lot to fiddle with and consider when trying to get your bike fitted. I would suggest either booking a fit appointment with a professional, or doing some fit research since there are methods on the internet that can get you pretty close, like 80% of the way there, with a friend to give you feedback on what you’re doing.
Most people in MTB lean towards the largest bike they can reasonably ride. Others will tend towards the smallest frame they can reasonably ride. In either case, the difference between the biggest and smallest frame that a rider can manage is relatively small and hard to eyeball from a few images unless the bike is blatantly too big or your knees are banging into the bars. What’s making the bike look small here I think is your position with the saddle too low.
Get that saddle up to the height where your tippy toes can just touch the pavement. Buy Deity Supracush grips. You perhaps need to size up on the bike but first try higher saddle height and thicker grips.
Nice trek!
Seat is too low and roll the bars forward like others have said. If itâs a marlin I didnât like the grips my girlfriends bike came with, so maybe find something more supportive
If you have a hole for internal dropper routing you can put a PNW dropper post on their easily and itâs a HUGE help for mounting/dismounting your bike (among other benefits). generally itâs pretty awkward starting from a stop with the seat high like it should be
Raise your seat.
Angle your brake levers to be in line with a neutral wrist
Less weight on the bars and more in your core. Do deadlifts
You arenât a medium in any bike at that size
At the very least the saddle is set too low. The reach might also be too short. But it’s hard to say from a photo with the saddle so low. If it is too short a reach, a local shop should be able to fit you with a slightly longer stem, bringing the handlebars out a bit. Changing stem length changes steering feel a bit, so take it easy the first few rides. Don’t try to make any wild MTB content for a few rides. I jest, but you’ll be fine with the slight change on gravel paths.
Pins and needles, often called “hand fatigue” in cycling, can be caused by your wrist angle, or gripping too tightly. General cycling gloves or MTB specific gloves can help if you are gripping too tightly. The angle will partly be improved with a better position on the bike (raising the saddle). But also some conscious effort to grip the bars where your wrists are straighter. The wrist angle (and hand fatigue) is a pretty common thing that many adult cyclists struggle with when getting back into riding after a long time away.
Is the dropper post dropped?
It may be a neurological disorder due to your head being replaced by a large ball of string.
Bike looks way too small to me, and you look like you’re young and will keep growing. Get a bigger bike.
This bike isn’t *too* small. It’s on the smaller end of what can be made to work with your body size, but it can definitely be made to work.
First thing you need to do is properly set the saddle height.
When you’re setting your saddle height, the rule I like to go with is to place your heel on the pedal, fully extend your leg with the pedal at its lowest point in the rotation, and set your saddle height there to start. Pedal with the ball of your foot on the pedal, and your leg will have a bend in the knee that’s close to optimal. You can adjust your saddle height an inch up or down as you ride more and try to find the most comfortable set up.
You won’t be able to put your feet on the ground while sat on the saddle set to the correct height, so to dismount you want to stand up off the saddle, keep one foot on the pedals (for me I like to use my weak, left foot) and step off the pedal with your other foot as you come to a stop. Your pelvis should naturally move forward and away from the saddle, so that you straddle the top tube.
After that, play around with the bar roll. You can loosen the clamp bolts at the front of the stem, and then rotate the bars forwards for a slightly roomier fit or rotate them back to shrink the fit slightly. (At first glance it looks like the bars are rotatinf as far back they could be, which is unlikely to be comfortable.) If you still find your hands are uncomfortable, you may be able to raise the stem on the steerer tube by moving spaces from above to below. This will shrink the top tube and bring the bars closer to your shoulders, which should take some of the weight off your hands. If you are still searching for a solution, you may want to go with a taller rise bar (~30-50mm rise) which will effectively bring the bar higher and closer to your shoulders without actively shrinking the top tube.
If you are a true 5’10” then get at least an M/L. My wife who is 5’4″ fits on a M Trek comfortably.