neck pain?

posna2 said:

Does it eventually just go away with practice and consistent riding?

To a degree it will. My neck is usually a little sore for the first few rides of the season, then it gets better. You can help it out a lot by raising your bars a bit.

Ditto. I found that my handlebars were a bit too wide and, because I wear glasses, I was hunching my neck down into my shoulders and looking up to focus. Narrower handlebars (shorter and more shallow for us women) seem to help, based on my last 2 weeks' experience. I'm able to drop my shoulders down and ride in a more "correct" and comfortable position (straight back, bent elbows). Hope info on this board helps. Neck pain is no fun!

posna2 said:

I'm relatively new to cycling and on a 40 mile ride the other day my neck really started hurting from leaning over but looking up. Is this common or do I have bad posture? Is there a way to ride in order to avoid this pain? DOes it eventually just go away with practice and consistent riding?

Yes.....neck pain sucks. Been suffering as well but mine is work related. Raise the bars abit or maybe get a stem with more of a rise. It might resolve itself with a little bike fit tweaking.

Good luck.

being new to this, you probably hold your head up way too high in an effort to be comfortble with your vision.
one trick and you will adopt this with some miles, is to hold the head somewhat more downward and roll the eyes upward. some good cycling sunglasses serve well here as they let you see upward on well designed ones.
also, muscle development. most people do not support the weight of the head at a cycling angle. this put demand on the rear neck region.
some light weight high rep weight traing such as presses and shrugs can result in the required strength here.
also make you safer in case of crash.

posna2 said:

I'm relatively new to cycling and on a 40 mile ride the other day my neck really started hurting from leaning over but looking up. Is this common or do I have bad posture? Is there a way to ride in order to avoid this pain? DOes it eventually just go away with practice and consistent riding?

Get a recumbent!

TD

RC2's rule of thumb: if your neck hurts more than your bum on a long spring ride, your bars are probably a bit low. (OK I don't really have any rules of thumb, but if your neck is the biggest complaint in terms of discomfort -- and there rightly should be Many discomfortable parts of one's anatomy whilst increasing distance/fitness on a bike -- you need to be more upright.) The heads-down, good sunglasses/eyeglasses suggestion from hypno is certainly solid as a 1st step.

Funny thing pops into mind... in the OLN Race Across America footage, one of the contestants had serious issues w/keeping his head/neck up most of the way thru the race, and swag'ed together a contraption with a stick strapped to his torso and elastic band to his helmet for support. Not a recommendation in your case. 😉

tyler_derden said:

Get a recumbent!

TD

That'd be another way! 😄

Sounds like something is off. Your position on the bike, maybe the seat or something. The height of the bike could be wrong for you maybe.

Try to do stretching before riding and include your neck muscles. Sometimes when I forget to stretch, I have muscle pain after the ride. It may also be related to your posture and position while riding. Ride in the appropriate positions so the muscles will not be stressed and you can avoid injury and other ailments.

I'm sure you'll work your muscles up and it won't continue to be a problem. You are new so it's understandable.

I had this neck pain too before. I was thinking then that it might be because I only do minimal movements with it thereby causing some stiffness aside from the fact that I need to adjust my handle bars. It did go away but from time to time I still feel some of it coming back. So I do some stretching before and after I ride