James Hodson said:Velvet said:Having hopped on the bike the last couple of evenings (wimping out indoors, both due to plain
wimping out, and to lessen the vibration on the arm with residual nerve damage), have found it
aggravates nerve a lot, so cycling appears to be out for the foreseable future (frustrating).
Hi Velvet
What did you do to your arm? I ask as I tripped over a small child called James three weeks ago
and damaged my right arm. Although the pain isn't too bad most of the time it occasionally gets
worse. Most of the time I have a "dead" arm with a slight tingling in my wrist but every now and
again my upper arm ache becomes an upper arm agony.
My right hand is always a tad tingly. FWIW, I've decided to pop into A&E tomorrow.
Regards James
I'm not quite sure. I did it whilst sailing, a couple of months back. It was quite windy, and I have
no recollection of clouting the funny bone, but was covered in bruises in places (not just the arm)
so the whole body got a bit bashed around (we're talkign dinghy sailing here, not yachts!). The
whole hand was tingly/numb, with tingling in the elbow joint (or at least provoked by the elbow
joint), wrist and elbow pain, numbness of fingers off and on, etc. Went to the GP, who said I'd
damaged two of the three nerves that run down the forearm, and said just rest, don't do anything to
re-strain it, etc. She mentioned some sort of a nerve conductivity test if it didn't improve - it
*has* improved, but the symptoms came back worryingly fast after just two short (and by short I mean
VERY short) stints on the bike last week (20 mins and 40 mins). It seems to be both weight on the
hand (pulling the joints apart) and taking the weight of the body (compressing the joints) that
makes it flare up again. Carpal tunnel damage was a potential - and to be fair, I *do* use the
keyboard a lot for my job, but have done for years, and have never had any signs of RSI before. She
mentioned I seemed to have inflammation surrounding the nerves which would press on them (causing
the tingling and numbness) but to be honest I just didn't expect the two stints on the bike to cause
the return of it quite as much as it did - and bearing in mind this was on the turbo, so no bumps
and vibration coming up through the bars either!!
I've made another appt with her to see what else could be done - I may be relying on cycling in
about a months time to get groceries etc (redundancy looms), and if I can't cycle then I'm a
bit stuck.
To address another point, the reason for 3-wheeled trike is both stability and the wish to use
clipless. Currently on my bike I'm very nervous about stopping. They're just not controlled. I've
gone from toestraps (which were always very loose) to platforms, to try and get this sussed (it's a
confidence issue more than anything else) - I went from a lack of confidence on 2 wheels to total
confidence on 3. With a trike, I can happily stick the spd's on (to prevent leg suck) and benefit
from the extra power - with 2, I would never feel happy enough that I can get a foot free when
needed - toestrapped or spd'd, they seem both about the same for the worry factor. And like I said,
I'd be going up hills on a 'bent very slowly - too slowly to balance - and I don't much fancy
putting hands down into a wet muddy road as an alternative when stopping :-) Around here, dogs don't
just do it on the pavements!
I doubt I'll realise the goal of a 3-wheel 'bent any time soon. I was just interested to know if
there was anything out there that might fit the requirements, or if anyone does keep theirs
outdoors. I doubt I'd get even a 2-wheeled one up the stairs and indoors - part of the criteria for
my current bike was it had to be light, and I can just about manage to shoulder it (has to be
shouldered to get up the stairs)
- it's the smalled dawes audax frame from a couple of years back, in 531C reynolds tubing, to give
you some idea of what I can and can't lift (anythign heavier's a non-starter, I just can't
manage it).
Velvet
