Pins and needles

[jonny jeez]

Is this chitty or a road bike ? Saddle angle also ?

Roadie

...and its dead flat, parallel to the road

 

[jonny jeez]

I get similar problems. With tingly big toe and fingers.

With my feet, I think my shoes can be a bit tight and I put a lot of force through the balls of my feet (as opposed to the other way round) - I think you are meant to spread the load across your feet a bit i.e. across from the ball of your foot to your big toe - cleat adjustment needed maybe - I'd welcome some other thoughts on this.
I found www.stevehoggbikefitting.com, which is very detailed on this point.

With my hands, I think its coz I'm reaching to far forward. I put a shorter headset on and that has helped a bit - It's made me more upright so less weight on my wrists. Gel pads help to some extent, but I think you can put too much pressure on the nerves travelling through your wrists (carpal tunnel syndrome). However, I still dont ride with my hands on the hoods - My natural hand position is about a couple on inches behind them so still too much reach. I also end up on the end of the saddle sometimes - Crap bike choice maybe, but I have a short torso and long legs.

Cheers, I'll have a good read of the site. Perhaps i should invest in a "fitting"

 

[Hip Priest]

I find that the pins & needles in my feet disappeared once I got my position right (after many tweaks). I still get them in my hand if I don't change position enough, but I'm just glad I no longer experience numb genitals - that was almost enough to put me off cycling!

 

[BlackPanther]

Strangely, I only ever get pins and needles on the way to work in the morning, but never ever on the way home. I put it down to it being colder, but I still get them when I wear warm gloves, so maybe it's my core body temperature? It's the vibration that makes my hands go numb as I also used to get it when I rode the motorbike (again, only in the mornings though).

Padded/gel gloves help, and also flexing my fingers every 10 minutes or so prevents it, but usually I only remember to do this when I've actually got the pins and needles!

 

[MattHB]

I took ages to sort my tingly toes out tried everything.

Turned out to be the morton's neuroma problem. Solved it with the Specialized support footbeds. They come in three support levels, red, blue and green. Red being minimal support, green being lots. I needed the green and it sorted it right away. They all have a metatarsal 'button' which sort of acts like a spreader to stop the nerve getting trapped.

It really took every ounce of enjoyment out of my riding, it was a pure joy to fix it. They are about £25 a set. Find an LBS that sells them as they have a glass plate you can stand on which gives you a good idea of the level of support you need. They measured me and suggested blue, I put some in in the shop and they felt better but not quite enough, so I bought green and theyre superb. You even get a shim kit with them so you can fine tune knee alignment.

As for hand issues, as everyone has said, flip the stem. I find even a slight rise in height of my hoods (swivel the handlebar up in the stem) makes enormous differences. Its a bit of a black art and takes some twiddling.

Good luck

 

[jonny jeez]

Thanks all

I shall start attacking the foot issue by adjusting my cleats a little backwards (towards the instep and away from the toes) and see if this relieves a little pressure. the nu shoes are pretty loose so I suspect the position of the cleats is the issue.

As far as the hands, I'll adjust the seat forward a little...now this feels a little cramped but if its the position my body is naturally falling towards then perhaps the clues are all there.

Lets see what next week brings.

 

[CopperCyclist]

Wrong kind of bike, innit.

Are you telling him to get Bent?

 

[BentMikey]

LOL, yeah!

 

[Graham]

If you shift your saddle forward, then you could develop problems with your knees - think there is a rule about your knee cap being directly above the ball of your foot when the pedal arm (think that's right) is at 3 'o' clock. Its a minefield this fitting business, sorry I have no answer to this. Would be interested how you get on with the cleats.

 

[ttcycle]

If your saddle is straight, when you say that you're sliding off/down. This could be a couple of things - The saddle may be too far back so you're compensating and shifting yourself forward which may partially explain the hand issue.

However, if that's not the case and start with small adjustments (I personally still haven't got the adjustments right on the gold bike) then you may be one of those people that responds best with the saddle tilted slightly upwards.

Hope you get it sorted.

 

[Altus]

There's loads of detailed videos on youtube on road bike fitting. Check some of those out to get a visual idea. I'd only consider changing seat fore/aft for checking that my leg position was correct (assuming you have correct length cranks). Id use shorter/longer/adjustable / flipped stems to fix the reach and hand position issues afterwards

 

[jonny jeez]

If your saddle is straight, when you say that you're sliding off/down. This could be a couple of things - The saddle may be too far back so you're compensating and shifting yourself forward which may partially explain the hand issue.

However, if that's not the case and start with small adjustments (I personally still haven't got the adjustments right on the gold bike) then you may be one of those people that responds best with the saddle tilted slightly upwards.

Hope you get it sorted.

I tried shifting the saddle froward but felt very cramped, so ahve drifted it back.

However, I do feel as If i am "falling" forward a little all of the time, like there is too much pressure on the front of the bike (as a side note I find it really hard to lift my body up and ride no handed, should I ever want to)

So, I'm going to take a look at raising the front of the saddle.

On the feet issue, I think perhaps I was premature in assuming I had pins and needles, My feet were more painfully Numb than tingly... I rode last night with overshoes on and was fine so perhaps I just had really cold feet.

that or the fact that the ride home last night was so good that I just didn't notice.

 

[Graham]

If its a modern road bike then for your hands you could also try flipping the stem. ie rotate it around 180degrees this should lift the bar height and bring the bars in slightly closer to you. Could be that you have too much weight forward on your hands?

Just to say thanks very much for this tip - I flipped the stem and rode in today and the riding position is now perfect - 26 miles, no hand problems and my hands are now right on the hoods. My back feels better too.

 

[ColinJ]

The hand problem might be Cyclist's Palsy. (I looked it up yesterday for evilclive.)

 

[BentMikey]

If you're feeling a bit spendy, go see Scherrit, the Bike Whisperer. He's very good with bike fit, and highly recommended not just by me, but a number of other forummers here and elsewhere whom I respect.