Sore neck during rides, what should I do?

[kingpin75s]

I pretty much run all of my bikes with zero (or near) saddle to bar drop along with short and shallow bars. I am comfortable for long rides and use my drops as appropriate, which means more often then most.

I am just refitting a couple of bikes for my father as well after his significant neck injury. Bringing him up level and shortening the reach a bit.

[Mr. Pink]

Handlebar width may be a problem. I widened mine way back, and it worked. Also, rock your head a bit climbing. Keep a rythym. Loosens you up.

[benb]

I agree with the eyeglasses/sunglasses thing messing with your neck posture. Agree with the idea that handlebar width may be an issue, especially bars that are too narrow which is a fad right now.

I don't agree with the whole bring the bars up philosophy.

Bringing the bars up can be counter productive.. people end up rolling their shoulders/upper back forward more to try and keep the arms at the right extension which then means the neck has bend more the other direction to compensate... easier to get more cramps in your upper back and more neck pain. Then you start thinking you need to raise the bars even more and shorten the reach cause your back & neck still hurt. Pretty soon you start thinking you need a flat bar bike. I also think when you go to ride hard your torso wants to drop down.. if the bars are too high you end up pushing down on the bars if they're too high.

When the bars are lower/further away you'll straighten out your upper back and then your neck doesn't actually bend as far and your shoulders don't have to roll as far forward. Obviously you can take this too far.. I'm not saying overdo it on reach and drop, but there's a happy medium and IME it's not as upright as you might think. It's hard to describe without pictures I guess.

[fmradio516]

^true

I have been doing this for the past many months. adjusting to shorter/higher reach as I have a 36" inseam so my seatposts are always super high and therefore leading to a good amount of drop to my bar.

Eventually got to a pretty funny riding position but also started making my left hand go number after about 30-40 minutes. I had my shifter set to the highest marked point on the bar + had the bar slightly tilted up. After adjusting that to a lower position yesterday, my hands were fine for the rest of the short ride home.

Need to go out again and test it out to be for sure, but i think its better now.

[Lewis Moon]

Bike fit/comfort evolves with time. I used to have horrible neck pain, so I did the shorter/higher thing, but over time I have devolved back down to almost a slammed stem on a road bike. Over 15cm of drop and a lot of reach. Don't be afraid of experimenting with stem drop and length, and keep on experimenting.
...and oh yeah, get a fit.

[thwart]

Originally Posted by benb

I agree with the eyeglasses/sunglasses thing messing with your neck posture. Agree with the idea that handlebar width may be an issue, especially bars that are too narrow which is a fad right now.

I don't agree with the whole bring the bars up philosophy.

Bringing the bars up can be counter productive.. people end up rolling their shoulders/upper back forward more to try and keep the arms at the right extension which then means the neck has bend more the other direction to compensate... easier to get more cramps in your upper back and more neck pain. Then you start thinking you need to raise the bars even more and shorten the reach cause your back & neck still hurt. Pretty soon you start thinking you need a flat bar bike. I also think when you go to ride hard your torso wants to drop down.. if the bars are too high you end up pushing down on the bars if they're too high.

When the bars are lower/further away you'll straighten out your upper back and then your neck doesn't actually bend as far and your shoulders don't have to roll as far forward. Obviously you can take this too far.. I'm not saying overdo it on reach and drop, but there's a happy medium and IME it's not as upright as you might think. It's hard to describe without pictures I guess.

Good points here.

I'm surprisingly comfortable on my 57 cm LeMond. Even riding a lot in the drops, and even after my bike accident related C5-C6-C7 neck fusion 4 yrs ago. Drop is 3-4 cm. BTW, was 5-10, now post accident 5-8 3/4... lost a bit of height in the thoracic and lumbar spine (compression fractures) as well.

[benb]

I think there's a lot to hamstring flexibility, seat height, ability to roll the pelvis forward, etc.. too.

There's a lot of odd stuff going on and it's not simple. That's why the whole "just raise the bars/bring the bars back" thing seems overly simplistic.

Saddle too low causes the hips to rotate back, puts the lower back more upright, then your back doesn't want to lean forward, hips are rotated back, etc.. then you need to compensate with your upper back cause the lower back has shortened your ability to reach. Then your upper back is bent forward and down as if you're standing around looking at your smartphone. But you're not, you're trying to look up, so now you're neck is contorted a long way.

It's like you're slouching and trying to look up in the air at the same time... you'd never do that standing off the bike but you can end up doing it on a bike cause you need to reach the handlebars.

I went through this personally after a fitter recommended a lower seat height for me. It cascaded through to all kinds of problems with neck, upper back, wrists, etc.. and my reach & drop seemed to have to reduce like crazy but it just kept getting worse till I got a sanity check. The Saddle immediately went back up and forward, bars went out and down, and the problems went away.

Just make sure the root cause is actually understood.. it might not be the bars at all.

[zmalwo]

Thanks for all the advice guys. turns out my cleats were wayy too far forward so i slid them back about 1cm. that should lower my saddle height for about 1.5cm and forward for about 1cm. my stem was already at the highest position possible if this doesn't solve the problem then I will flip the stem. gonna try that head til method too. maybe need a pair of new sunglasses as well

[K3RRY]

How heavy is your helmet?

[Dekonick]

Originally Posted by K3RRY

How heavy is your helmet?

This - I can tell you that after almost every major incident at work, my neck hurts... from wearing a fire helmet for extended periods of time.

[fogrider]

Originally Posted by Lewis Moon

Bike fit/comfort evolves with time. I used to have horrible neck pain, so I did the shorter/higher thing, but over time I have devolved back down to almost a slammed stem on a road bike. Over 15cm of drop and a lot of reach. Don't be afraid of experimenting with stem drop and length, and keep on experimenting.
...and oh yeah, get a fit.

I'm with you on this. I've got 2 bikes with the handlebars even with the saddle and one that is about halfway to slapped and then a couple that are slapped. I can do long rides with the bike slapped bars, no problem...work on your core and do your push-ups and sit-ups!

[Oxford_Guy]

Following this thread with interest, as in recent months I've been getting a sore neck on rides, in fact the last time I did a long-ish fast ride the sore/stiff neck stuck, and I've still got it now weeks later :-(

Think the problems began when I started to ride actually on the hoods more (for safety's sake), rather than further back on the bars, since I started doing fast club rides in a group, so may be reach-related. Even so, I think I need to increase the strength of my upper back/neck muscles -any pointers for this?

[benb]

Could easily be other stuff too if anything else is changing. E.x. temporarily wearing a hardhat at work or something else that could be tiring your neck out.

I've had issues with my neck & shoulders getting sore riding if I did something like play guitar and spend too much time looking down. Or if I did a lot of rock climbing or something where you spend a ton of time looking up with your arms raised over your head.

I've been doing some exercises called IYT lately.. super easy to do and target a lot of the muscles that you use to keep your upper back straight. Very easy thing to throw in at the end of a workout.

https://www.google.com/search?q=iyt+...hrome&ie=UTF-8

[dpdan93]

bike fit

[m_sasso]

Get fit! Shoulder rolls forward and backward daily will strengthen and solve +90% of neck problems associated with bike riding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8yCm_sFUo4