I started commuting, 7 miles each way, on a 17" trek 930 MTB in September of '05 and started having lots of hand pain. I went to a local shop and they said the bike was too small. I bought a 19" Gary Fisher Marlin MTB. I spent a lot of time adjusting the seat to get proper fit. During this time I started having shoulder pain. Turns out I had to have Slap repair surgery. I just started commuting again after four months. Recently I have been trying to adjust the bike to make it easy on my shoulders (still in therapy for the surgery). I pulled the handle bars in a bit and that helped a little. Then I increased the height of the handle bars by about 3 inches. Now the shoulder pain isn't bad but now I'm starting to have wrist pain. This is all road riding on a mountain bike. Is this the wrong tool for the job? I would appreciate any thoughts you may have on this.
BTW, I have been mountain biking off an on about 10 years and never had these problems until I started commuting.
As you've discovered, a more upright posture generally relaxes the shoulders, arms and wrists. Not all that efficient for pedalling in some terrain, but it doesn't sound that that's the issue at this point.
Since you've raised your handlebars already, other items that might reduce stress on wrist might include a shorter stem, or moving the seat forward a bit. I also changed out my flat bars to a more swept design to allow my wrists to "dorsiflex". That reduced some wrist fatigue for me over longer rides.
I started commuting, 7 miles each way, on a 17" trek 930 MTB in September of '05 and started having lots of hand pain. I went to a local shop and they said the bike was too small. I bought a 19" Gary Fisher Marlin MTB.
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Quoted message said:
This is all road riding on a mountain bike. Is this the wrong tool for the job?
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No back pain, no shoulder pain, no wrist pain ....
