Quote Originally Posted by DeniseGoldberg
Do you have your arms locked? Or your wrists bent?

For a riding position that is kind to your hands, your wrists should be straight and your elbows should be bent - and your weight should not be concentrated on your hands.

There was a good discussion yesterday in the thread titled Handlebars with some good hand & arm-related advice - you might want to check out http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=3206.

--- Denise
I'm actually a little frustrated w/this, to be honest. I had a fitting (from a very good LBS) about 7 rides ago. I think the fitting put even more weight on my arms than I'd had before. I have not built up my back strength enough yet, so I can't hold the upper body weight anywhere but on my arms/hands/wrists. My elbows are not bent as much as I'd like, but admittedly, I have a VERY short torso.

I shift hand position constantly, but keep going back to being on top rather than on the hoods, particularly since the fitting (which rightly put me more over the pedals than I had been).

I'm not sure how to resolve that issue; positionally, I'm where I need to be to get power all the way from my hips down through my quads, my feet and into the bike. But that puts me more forward and having to rely more on upper body than I had been before.

And unfortunately, I can't rest my hand today since I have work!

I suppose this is another "time in the saddle" thing...but I have Cycle Oregon coming up, and really need to be able to be in the saddle for 3 long days followed by a rest day followed by 3 more long days (that's coming up on 9/10).

I have only been riding since December, and really only hitting it hard since February as I'd sprained my knee the first time out in December. I really think I'm being realistic about being able to do this ride in a few months...but of course, I'm very nervous now that I've had this pretty serious issue. This hand thing would have put me out of riding if it had happened during the vacation!