I recently had a bike fitting, and they also tested the angle of my wrists. Changing the bar to a 8cm shorter one with a back sweep of 12° instead of the 6° backsweep standard bar the bike came with, did not only solve wrist ache, but allowed me to ride with my elbows closer to my body, lowering shoulder stress, and allowing me to exert a lot more power when performing the 'row'. Result: over 1m more jumping distance on about every jump I make on my favourite track, and - most importantly - ache-free ride (the muscle burn doesn't count ;)

0:35 & 3:17 I am very familiar with wrist pain, hand pain. Sometimes you might still get pain even if all is perfectly setup. But make sure the bike has enough reach, and I recommend to have brake levers flat if the reach of the bike is long enough to do so, then just rest your hands on the grip, relax your arms, let your body absorb impacts, don't deathgrip, which means gripping the grip hard, it causes fatigue, don't lock up your arms, let the body's natural suspension work. if brakes are too steep it will cause fatigue, if reach is too short, it will cause fatigue, hand, wrist, and thumb pain, wrist should not be kinked, kinked wrist happens if reach is too short bet brake levers are flat, if reach is too short levers have to be at a steeper angle, but longer the reach flatter they can be, same with cockpit height, if the cockpit is too low wrists get kinked, which cause pain, fatigue. too long reach and rider is reaching too far, which basically locks up the arms, does not let the body absorb impacts as natural suspension. if you get pain in only one side, check if the handlebar has been bent, the back sweep, up sweep might be off now. But the hands might not have the same grip angle, so you mgiht need a custom made handlebar, to get the correct back and upsweep, also check if your arms are different length, this can also cause pain and fatigue, imbalance. you might ride with too big or too small grips, I recommend making a circle with the thumb and index finger and measure the diameter, get grips closest to this number. Thumb pain can be caused by misalignment, I have issues with misalignment of my thumbs, it happens during shifts sometimes, which can be very painful, so I gave up on mechanical shifters, I use Archer Components D1Xttrail with the paddle remote, much better ergonomics, and no fatigue, and even if my thumb misaligns it won't hurt, as the shifting action is so light. I also issues with loose wrists, it made it impossible to brake hard enough, so I missed corners and went too wide, so I have to use wrist supports, I recommend to get Mobius X8, but get some spare finger loops too, as they wear out quite quickly. X8 is super easy to put on and take off, and to loosen, if you don't need it and want to cool down, but the brace is cooler than the Troy Lee 5052. I recommend to check if fingers, and wrists are place, even check the elbow, if elbow is misaligned it can cause pain at the muscle near the elbow but also near the wrist. Also do stretches daily. The pain can also be related to your neck, shoulders, misalignment can cause nerve pain, so you might feel stinging, like needle in finger tips, feel like fingers are clamped with pliers, or moving pain trough the body. So if weird sensations, and pain is gone when your neck got good, then it can be a sign it was the neck. misaligned neck, tight muscles can cause serious havoc. But if you have sloppy wrists this can cause pain and fatigue from riding. My lower back can cause weird sensations, pain in my toes, feet. the issue is not always where you feel it, but it can be a wide spread problem stemming from another location effecting the other locations, but might be a combination of both. I do often have to lay in bed with neck pillow under my neck, switch positions to tarted specific misalignment, same with back, rolled pillow, I also use many stretches, but done carefully, and target specific areas, but if it's only the hands, wrists, I would do stretches there only, but I have many issues, possibly all back and neck misalignment issues possible. don't do just try self chiropractic adjustment, it can be dangerous, so watch videos on safe ways of doing it, I do it safely. Stretches are not always possible or good to do, but if it feels like it is, it likely is, so if I feel stretches help, I do them, I do targeted stretches to loosen up shoulder, upper back, or whole back, various stretches, it might be too complicated to explain. I recommend checking out SpineCare Decompression and Chiropractic Center on youtube, the guy shows good and safe stretches and other stuff. also check out dialedhealth, he has good stretches and work outs.

about wrist pain, all answers may be either correct or not, but one we rarely hear is: "we know not enough about you, your body dimensions, your bike size, your age, your physical condition, wether you had injuries or do a weary job that's compromising your wrists: we cannot provide informed opinions and suggestions; see a physician and/or a bike fitter, THEN tinker with your bike" but no, n,1 straight answer is "try this and that" which usually means buy stuff.

I solved my painful wrist issue with very comfy grips but mainly Doddy's old tip to raise the brake levers forces me to bend my elbows better (index finger breaking) and mechanically cussion my weight! (Hope I explained well) same as explained in video.. Forgot about wrist pain!

I also suffered from wrist aches from long XC rides. I previously had a 720 mm straight handlebar, but I had to trim it down to 680 mm, which was the width of my stock handlebar. It reduced the pain and improved my comfort significantly.

a good way to figure out what angle to set your brake lever at is to move them in out of the way and see what angle your wrist and hands normally sit and start there. Another thing to look at as far as hand pain is the actual grip diameter as well angle if they are not round or don't have the same pattern all the way around the grip. As well as how firm or soft the grip is.

wrist pain can be caused by the saddle tipping you onto the bars more,try levelling the saddle out too see if that helps

Awesome videos as always!! Could you kindly do a video on Flat bar Vs Riser bar along with width combinations

Some of those people have carpal tunnel for sure. A friend of mine was having the same issue and got a surgery, he is doing great now. Verry little pain to none.

Guys, no. For this comparison you need a something like Norco Rampage with the Hammerschmidt and XTR derailleur with the clutch and a Reverb. Then totally service ir and put some easy modern upgrades leke wider bars,, new wide tyres an so on. THIS will be a fair battle. Because this is how you will get it used today or would upgrade it anyways.

Great episode.. good advice alround!

Thanks for the reply Anna! 🤘🏻

Ulnar nerve issues would cause numbness on the outside of your hand, pinky and ring finger

I actually experience the same thing on my right hand esp. the thumb base sometimes, and I just attribute that to being the hand that does the most (braking + shifting on a 1x). Of course, aside from it being my dominant hand.

@gmbntech Before we mess with stem lengths or bar height, is is absolutely critical to dial in the saddle first. You have to ensure the saddle angle is correct, the height is right and it is in the proper position front to rear. This all contributes to keeping your weight balanced while seated which is a major factor when trying to keep excess weight off the hands. We always work from back to front when fitting.

Try strengthening your arms and wrists. I used to have tendonitis in my elbows. After lots of physio etc, found out that strengthening my shoulders could eliminate elbow pain. Also haven't had any "arm pump " since. (Tested at Whistler). Various arm exercises could fix your wrist problem. 🇨🇦

Apair of properly set up Ergon GP1s fixed my wrist pain on frequently-ridden long, steep downhills with lots of braking. Absolutely worth a try ...cheaper than a physio, splint etc

Got wrist pain on my xc bike which has quite an aggressive angle - ergon grips with the weird shape fixed it without any other adjustments and I can do long days out on the bike now

9:33 I recommend to do regular pushup, measure the outside width of hands. I make sure to ride a bike and set up that fits me. But yes, if stem is longer like on a XC set up might be, you can run a narrower bar and not feel like to cramped, but for me running narrower bar is out of the question, if I run a narrower bar my elbows misalign all the time, at least with 720mm they do, I use 800mm, it only happens if I ride very techy stuff. but just riding along on a path, road, pavement, won't do it, but on 720 it did.

14:52 Definitely a good point, but just want to add that if that's done like Anna says you will be braking with the mid bone of the finger.

I've found that more backsweep in my bars solved these thumb and wrist issues for myself. But choices are severely limited or too beach cruiser style.

7:48 This works well, and makes a huge difference for me, I have brake levers flat, but I have long enough reach to allow this, fi you ride a bike with very short reach, then you need the brake levers steeper, or wrist will be kinked. but if reach is long enough, and cockpit is not too low, all of this combined, results in relaxed wrist, hand just rests on the grip, no need to hold it, arms are relaxed slightly bent. So some need to run it somewhere between the two positions. trails riders will run the brakes almost vertical, or vertical as they are doing rear wheel hops, but if you mostly do downhill flat lever setup works great, but for general riding, where you do a bit of everything, you need the reach and cockpit height for it. So for me it works great. If you have a bike that is too short, but then you switch to mid foot position, bike might feel too short and levers can't be as flat. but my bike is dialed in for mid foot position, and long enough for flat levers and cockpit is high enough. I made sure I ordered the right frameset.

Regarding blisters: mine were severely reduced when I switched to larger diameter grips

I get occasional left wrist pains. My bars are to flat

I use to get arm pump and wrist pain ,and I ride a hardtail. I got carbon bars and rev grips ,that took it away

ergo grips solved my problem+ they are very comfortable

6:42 Yea, I think Anna is right there, I do a hammer fist or flat hand test, just like show at 7:03, if it moves with a punch but not during braking it's secure but will move in a crash.I've never had an issue with that, if you do it just right it's secure, just tight enough to be secure, but that you can readjust it after a crash. just try.

thank you for the Video, related to Wrist Pain , and hand pain, is there a specific dimension\Category within MTB Geometry that one should look at when purchasing a bike to avoid Wrist Pain?

I was having funky hand pain in my fingers and my gloves were the problem also. Got some really nice fox thin gloves. And haven’t looked back.

I have an adjustable stem extender that makes all the difference as does bringing the seat forward a fraction and lower slightly. the rotation of the handlebar I adjusted too with a more downward look making the grip more comfortable. my advice woukd be to make small changes at a time and see how it goes.

I don’t understand how people can ride bikes with a negative slope to the handle bars. No matter how many adjustments I’ve tried, the lean forward always causes some part of my body to hurt and it’s just such an uncomfortable ride. I wish I could ride bikes like these but they are just too uncomfortable

I was getting numbnes in fingers on long rides and only Ritchey WCS Truegrip sorted it. Not sure because they are foam or the shape. I believe it is the shape - thicker in the middle and thinner on sides.

It can be as simple as bar width, I found that if I run 800mm I get wrist pain, but if I run 780mm I don't, and I have zero wrist injury history, so it can be connected with biomechanical situations such as the wrist position and angles involved while riding.

I only get wrist pain when I crash

What about backsweep? Having played with alt bars and even Motocross bars on my commuting bike for upright comfort, I now find my almost straight MTB riser bars put my wrists at more of an angle. Choosing a bar with a little more backsweep might straighten out the hand position for a lot of these problems.

#askgmbntech - dropping this one before I forget it - over the winter the trail teams spend days, weeks and months getting their creations running smoothly - and then after a few days we get the dreaded braking bumps appearing. So what is the science behind Braking bumps and can they ever be prevented? (and yes you should still do an episode on the tech behind trail building...)

#askgmbnteck how important is matching front and rear travel? Is it bad to have your bike unbalanced? (for examble 180 front and 160 rear, or even viceversa) really cool videos guys, I'm always tuned

#askgmbntech for the guy mentioning blisters at the end, look up germolene new skin. Used to get savage blisters riding motocross and this would help me massively. Failing that ride more/manual labour to develop callus’ is the best way

11:31 its carpel tunnel mates .. take rest u sont be do long trail ride if you havw carpel tunnel

I suffered terrible wrist-neck-back-butt pain to such extend, that I was unable to cycle more like 20km. Eventually, I stopped riding a bike at all. Eventually I got back to it when I discovered an ultimate solution to all of my pains - recumbent bike...

3:26 Is the Burgtec bar a Ridehigh Alu bar? if so that's a very harsh, undamped bar, it will cause fatigue, and is very hard on bunny hops, drops, and feel the terrain more. I tried it briefly, I could not continue using it, but I had had to get it, as it was the only bar with enough rise, I could get my hands of during the shortage. but Now I use a One up bar, it's stiff horizontally but flexes vertically, another option is Race Face Sixc, it flexes all directions, but it's very comfortable bar, well damped, even at bunny hops and one meter drops.

I think the wrist pain may be from having the seat too far forward and too high.

REVGRIPS HAVE CURED ALL THE HAND DISCOMFORT I EVER HAD SHREDDERS 🥰

I leave my levers 45 degrees and beyond, just cause the flat position used to take chunks out of my finger joints.. 45 degrees have it out of the way.

I have two mtb’s. One bike gets me sore wrists and the other doesn’t. Also I have a 20deg drop stems on both So the bike that gives me the sore wrists has a 6deg sweep handlebar & the bike that doesn’t hurt my wrist has a 9 deg sweep So I think it’s in the handlebar sweep

Hi i am new to mountain biking is there a chart or app where i can workout my right tyre pressure

Person with wrist pain....muscles in hand maybe stressed....kinesiologist can relieve pain with adjustment and acupuncture...work great for me after injury.

Try a tea spoon of cod liver oil everyday or second day,to help joints.

#askgmbntech hi, would riding with a loose through axle damage anything hubs/frame ect. I probably rode my bike for about an hour, on landing-less jumps and a couple of stair sets before I tightened it up again.

I just got a Trek Fuel exe and after riding it for a month I had to sell it for this very reason my hands were so sore I did everything you can to put my weight aft but the seat tube angle is just to steep for me so I went back to riding my Levo SL.

#askGMBNTech Do they make a fully articulated handlebar that can be fitted on a bike to find the optimum reach and wrist angles for a rider, which could thenbe used to choos the RIGHT bars rather than trying to get what ever is on there to work..?

I found that gloves made a big difference to getting caluses. Loose fitting or thick gloves are worse for getting caluses.

#askgmbtech during freezing temperatures my dropper post has been failing, it won't lock in any position but is fine after it spends the night indoors. Is it, the inner cable or the friction in the outter cable freezing? I'm using a brand x ascend 150, Shimano sp?? inner and outer cables with wd40 teflon grease. Best show oneverthing MTB btw!

Hand pain means that too much weight suporting by the hand.

#askgmbntech Random Old School one - I've recently seen the new Specialized Gravel bike with a 'Future' shock. Wasn't this the brand name they used for their in-house MTB Suspension back in the day? It came and went pretty quickly and don't think it worked too well, but pretty sure I read an article in MBUK about them poaching a top guy from Fox to develop it? Could be wrong...

15:03 This seems to be unavoidable. some gloves have gels or D30 pads to reduce this, but it might feel weird, and lack the control, and gloves might move, shift. some gloves might be good some might be bad. I use Revgrips. but still get calluses on the palms. but filing down carefully to reduce the bucklyness and using some hand,skin cream helps, I see Anna mentioned something about climbing skin care product, but I've never heard of that, might work well, but if you have hand cream this should work too to moisturise it. But don't go too crazy with the filing. but keep in mind it's not a bad idea to leave some behind cus skin is basically protecting your hand this way. I file it down and moisturise when it's too tall, pointy, and splits, that's not good, just makes hands harder to clean and feels weird.

I'm convinced that the manufacturers obsession with producing ever longer reach bikes is 90% of all back and wrist pain.

your wrist pain is probably starting as a seat position issue. cant believe gmbn didn't mention that. if your being rocked forward because of your seat your wrist's take the full weight. you need to balance your pelvis to by seat angle to relieve pressure on your wrists. you can change cockpit till the cows come home but wont do anything of your holding yourself up from falling forward because of the seat angle.

I used to suffer sever wrist pain along with arm pump. I went down in compression on the fork but I also started doing grip strength exercises. Gwin did a great video last year about grip strength and those exercises have allowed me to ride longer

Hi, I used to get wrist pain when I first started. The cause was that the bike shop had set the brake levers too high so I was riding with bent up wrists. An allan key a few moments to turn the levers down so that they were in line with my arm in normal riding position cured it for me.

#askgmbmtech Hello dods, anns and everyone in here! heres my conundrum: I'm thinking on putting a 160 travel fork on my SC chameleon which supposedly max at 140, i know a rule of thumb is no more than 10mm than stated, so some other 10mm will make that much of a negative effect? Considering on taking stem spacers out, swapping less rise handle bar and running 30% sag (hoping it remains at constant ~40mm travel), will any of that help? Also might there be any issue with that constant 30% sag? As if the stanchions/seals/lower legs might develop a problem? I would really like to get that fork since its a top end fox 36 for a super deal and I'm also planning on getting a more AM/enduro frame in a not so distant future. Thanks!

reach matters with wrist pain... ,seat forward slightly may help too ... bike fits are well worth the cash ... just takes a lot of guess work out of it ...

Revgrips

I feel like Chopper Reid would have the best solution

Numb hands is from your lower back pinching a nerve. Too much reach/not enough stack combined with a high seat. Wrist ache is too much concentrated weight on the hands. The solution is simple, get the bathroom scales out

Ergon GA3. But.. they are ugly bro', but let me try them.... hum.. gonna buy them

Wrist & hand pain often stems from over-fapping, not so much the cockpit ergonomics.

You might be riding with elbows locked...You might have a horrible bike setup...Like she said, too much weight and pressure on your hands..

In public speaking, saying uhm is a word wisker. You know your stuff, no need for word wiskers.

your bike is too big.

0:45 Instead of rocking handle bars, just try using them. Stupid slang.

What a bunch of assuming and guessing on the wrist issue. A lot of maybe and if's are explained but please, do a propper bike-fit to set a base to start your fine tuning instead of asking for the answer online. A good bike-fitter will look and listen to you. Not just tell obvious things to a general public like in this video.