does anyone else get sore hands?

[DottyDuck]

when riding i feel as if i get cramp in my hands... its bloody sore/inconvenient .. has anyone else had this when first riding a bike?

[U_W v2.0]

You're gripping the bars too tight.

Use your knees on the tank.
____________________
BCF's biggest cunt list: Cansa, Pits, Rob

[Howling TerrorOutOfOffice]

Give them a little shake out at the lights and imagine the controls are the genitals of your loved one.
____________________
Diabolical homemade music Bandcamp and Soundcloud
Singer songwriter, Artist and allround good bloke Listen to Andrew Susan Johnston here
The Harry Turner Project

[J.M.]

No.

All I get is bad vibrations from the bars (no bar ends) which can make my hand go slightly numb after 100 miles or so. All I do when it happens is flex my left hand until it clears, then use the left hand for the throttle and flex my right hand until it clears.

You're probably gripping the bars too tight or are putting strain on your wrist due to position.
____________________
2004 R1 & 2018 XSR900

[-LG-]

Yep, something that I had problems with. I was fine doing my CBT, but on the bigger bike, nightmare. I found saying in my head 'losen your grip', worked.
____________________
Snow rider wrote: I'm far to annoying to be near for long periods of time

[Dave-the-rave]

It takes practice to develop the grip muscles, just like wanking really.

[Howling TerrorOutOfOffice]

^^^The opposite if that.
____________________
Diabolical homemade music Bandcamp and Soundcloud
Singer songwriter, Artist and allround good bloke Listen to Andrew Susan Johnston here
The Harry Turner Project

[stinkwheel]

Your motorcycle is controlled by how you manipulate the controls, not how powerfully you manipulate the controls. Opening the throttle harder does not make your bike go faster.

Muscle effort is to keep you on-board the bike while it goes about its business. Controlling what it does takes next to none.

So. Grip the tank with your knees. Apply the brake with your hand.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[DottyDuck]

its not my wrists that are sore its more like the palms and my thumb joint... ive noticed on another thread that some people only use 1 or 2 fingers to pull in clutch/break.. where as i use all four fingers too... think i just need to get used to it! ... i have covered 240miles upto now! lol

[U_W v2.0]

Gripping to tight till also affect your fingers.

Just try easing up on the grip a little. I used all 4 fingers and have no problems.
____________________
BCF's biggest cunt list: Cansa, Pits, Rob

[TheSmiler]

Yeah gripping too tightly you will loosen up with more experience on the bike. If you are also getting too stiff you can use the loosey gooset method, I was taught it on the CBT and it has really helped me.

Basically where you flap your elbows and arms a bit it loosens up your body and your grip can make you feel more relaxed.
____________________
CB125>CG125>GN125>ER5>K100RS>R1100RS>K100RS
A2 completed 23/07/15 Ready for the Golden Crisp Packet

[esullivan]

[Ribenapigeon]

The first couple of months on a bike I would get a sore left thumb but it passed. I also managed somehow to get a left big toe nail go black and fall off (I know, wierd) but a shiny new nail underneath which is fine now.

As others have said, don't grip too tight with your hands. You will get so much more control when you develop a light touch on the controls.

Imagine the handlebar is a delicate stick and squeeze with your thighs.
There are three major benefits to this. You will get a much better feel for what the bike is doing through your bum. When you brake you will transfer your weight into the bike rather than into the front wheel and as a result of the first two more control.

One of the ways I practised for my Mod1 was by holding the bars with just my thumb and one finger when doing figure of eights and Uturns.

[P.]

I have heated grips and get sore thumbs... its the thickness of the grips for me.

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

Yeah sore hands at first, actually it was more of an ache. Thought I was getting arthritis - but it was almost certainly the effects of the Death Grip. Almost as bad as the ache was the sweat - in fact, I totally knackered my gloves because of it. They got so damp (this was on day 3 or something!), that I decided I needed to dry them. So I put them on the radiator that night - but next morning they were almost as damp as ever. WTF.

So, in attempt to remedy teh damp once and for all, I turned them inside out.

Er yeah - bad idea. These particular (£14!) gloves had 3 distinct layers. First, a soft foamy warm insulatey type of liner. Second a thin white plastic layer, to ensure no rain could get through the - third - outer layer.

Well, once that lot had been turned inside out, it was a total nightmare getting it all back inside IN. So much so in fact that I had to CUT the thin white plastic gloves out altogether. Incidentally I still use these gloves every day (minus the waterproofing glove), and even though they look total pikey nowadays they're not that dire, tbh. Yeah sure one whiff of rain and it's all over. But they're pretty good against cold and wind - although that might well be a result of my increased blubbery build and also the fact that I layer up to the point of Michelin Man dimensions before riding.
____________________
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

Mobylette Type 50 ---> Raleigh Grifter ---> Neval Minsk 125

[Rogerborg]

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

https://www.merschmeyer.de/touren/crampbuster2.jpg

=

https://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/121/f4b2d73fb1498a09f69987cad4f4174a/l.jpg


https://content7.flixster.com/photo/12/93/12/12931273_ori.jpg
____________________
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

Mobylette Type 50 ---> Raleigh Grifter ---> Neval Minsk 125

[Vincent]

Once on the open road, try resting your fingertips on the clutch and front brake levers, this'll help you relax your grip.
____________________
Space Is Deep

[Benno]

I sometimes get a sore left hand, even when I'm not using the clutch. No idea why. I often put my fingers up on the clutch lever for a while when this happens and it helps a little bit, or I just take my hand off and wriggle my fingers a little bit.
____________________
I'm autistic. That means I'm smarter than you.

[Teflon-Mike]

Its VERY common.
And you are a woman, which may mean you have rather dainty hands.
There are lots of potential factors here; so lets start at the top.

1/ The Death Grip.
On a motorbike, newbies grip the bars for dear life; its nerves, its natural, but DON'T DO IT. You feel vulnerable on a bike, and you dont feel like you are very connected with the vehicle like you are in a car, bus, train or aeroplane..... in a car? If you feel a bit nervouse, you grip the side of your seat, the handle over the door or the dash-board, dont you? Same instinct..... Thing is you dont need to grip that hard, in fact you probably dont need to even hold the handlebars at all a lot of the time, bike will steer with finger tip pressure, you dot need the death grip, all you are doing is straining the tendons in your hands.

2/ Control Possition
Get in a car, and you can slide the seat forwards or backwards, tilt the seat back, sometimes pump the base up or down, and thede days even tilt the steering column to a comfy angle.
Get on a bike, 'on size fits all' you just ride it... OK, you may adjust the mirrors!
There doesn't seem to be anything 'obviouse' you can adjust to suit your shape and size.
Well, there is; its just not so obviouse. The handle-bars can be adjusted for one. Concentional handlebars are clamped in the middle and you can loosen the four clamping bolts and rotate the handle-bars forwards or backwards in the clamps to change the reach and angle a bit. I'm a gorilla of a chap; so I tend to have them tilted a long way forwards for me, Snowie, with more sensibly lengthed arms likes them a little further back.
Then there are the levers on the ends. Again, usually clamped on the bars, one or two bolts can be slackened off and the levers rotated around the bars to a more comfortable angle.
When setting up levers, I get people to sit the bike; put thier hands on the bars in teh riding possition, fingers 'straight' from the palms.
Then I rotate the bars back and forth until they are most comfy, with the levers pointing to the floor, until I clamp up the bars, then I lift the bars up until they are 'just' under thier outrstretched straight fingers... as a guide for finding comfy starting point.
Lever 'reach' can then be adjusted. Some bikes, I suspect yours is possibly not one of them have 'span-adjusters' that aloow the 'rest'; possition of the lever to be moved closer or further away from the grip to suit different hand sizes. If you have these, use them, find comfy setting.
If not, you can still play around a bit. If you have cable operated controls then you can use the 'free-play' adjustor on the lever to set a closer rest possition; this can make the clutch easier to operate. If you have a hydraulic brake, it is more tricky, and the best you might be able to do is buy a different lever. Again, you might be able to buty after market lever with span-adjustors, or you can get alternative shaped levers, like 'stubbies' that are shorter or 'Dog-Legs' that crank around to put lever closer to the bar. (There are 'cheap tricks' you can use, but I dont like mentioning them on open forum, becouse if people fuck it up, then they might not have brakes... which ent good!)
OK, thats the handlebar controls, and there is a lot of potential adjustment there that may help.

Setting the lever angle on the bars, I'm sure would make a HUGE difference; always get a grin when I set levers for folk and they are stunned and make comments like 'Its like a different bike!', and I suspect that as a lady, the lever angle may be a little 'high' and one of the problems is you are having to unwrap fingers from teh grips, and lift them up and over the levers before you can use them, or resting fingers on teh lever, you are bending your hands back un-naturally at the wrist. So try it and see.... its a five minute job, needing one spanner!

OK... foot controls. Again as a lady, you probably have smaller feet than my size eleven clod-hoppers, and the gap between foot-peg and lever is likely to be a bit big. Where the lever sets in relation to your toe, can make a big difference to how precice you can make gear changes.... I know we are talking about your hands, but think about this, you are using your hands on teh clutch as you change gear; if you are strugling and having to move your foot, possibly right off the foot-peg to make a more clumsy change, this means more time holding the clutch in, more strain on your hands, and then more efort neded on your hand to belicately feed in the power around that change.

(As a learner you are also quite likely making a lot of unnecessery work for yourself making too many unneeded gear changes; short shifting up the box then clumping down again, rather than using the engine's revs in a responsive gear, becouse it sounds and feels like you are thrashing it..... but, thats another matter.... another lesson, but possibly orth noting)

Back to teh gear-Lever..... its on splines on the selector shaft. On some bikes directly, on others there is a remote lever and linkage to the selector shaft lever.

If its a direct lever, you can take the lever off and rotate it on the shaft and re-fit it at a more comfy angle that requires less boot waggling.

If its a linkage lever; you still have same option on the splined lever on the shaft, but there is also likely to be a length adjustor on the linkage rod, and undoing a coupl eof lock nuts and twisting teh adjustor will make the rod longer or shorter, moving the toe-lever up and down, again to get a more comfy angle.

Small changes, and big differences potentially to be found.

Other side Brake Pedal; bit like the gear lever, and again, balencing brakes if you struggle to reach the pedal or have to lift your foot off the peg to use it, you may be putting more emphasis on your hand on teh front brake to compensate. Shifting brake pedal to 'rest' in comfy easy to get at possition, and setting the 'bit point' on the brakes adjustment so it picks up where you want it to will increase comfort and control.

Drum brake on the rear, there will be a threaded rod on the end of the pedal lever going to a lever on the rear wheel hub. That rod can be lengthened or shortened by winding adjustor nut up and down the threaded end to set the bit point. and again, more adjustment found if needed moving the brake arm on the hub around on its splines.

At the front end, there SHOULD be a brake pedal 'stop' adjustor screw, to set the rest point height. Sometimes these dont offer much adjustment to raise or lower the rest point, and for big booted blokes I have often fitted bigger bolts to put the lever a lot further down out the way of thier clod-hopper. But ought to be more suitable for dainty footed lady.

Also worth noting that brake pedals are rather vulnerable to bending, when a bike is layed on its side, and often the pedal is nowhere near where it ought to be becouse its been bent.

Brake pedals bend easily..... and this nugget filed, for more 'extreme' adjustment, it may be possible to err.. bend the lever a bit and put the pedal head somewhere a tad more convenient.

On Snowie's bike, I have actually 'straightened' the lever out a bit, and pulled the pedal head round closer to the foot-rest, to help her with her diddy little size 6 hoofs!

OK... that's Death-Grip & Control Possition, two bigies that likely to make most differnce.

3/ Working TOO hard.
Stop Thinking- Start Riding. Learners often make a LOT of extra work for themselves, trying TOO hard. Death grip is one manifestation of this; but the 'over shifting' up and down the box is another. Tense and nervouse and always feeling you OUGHT to be doing something, or worrying whether you are doing stuff right you JUST try too hard and do TOO MUCH.

You will over react; slowing for a junction, you will do an e-stop, hauling on the brakes until you realise you are still MILES from the stop line and dont have to.... and could have done all your slowing a LOT later, and most of it JUST on the throttle.

Pulling away? Neet-Feet, you will hover legs over the ground worried you aren;t balenced and might have to put them down again. Wagging legs WILL make you wobble, and that means you compensate, shifting weight and moving the bars.... WORKING TOO HARD.... get feet up sharp; on the pegs, kill wobbles before they begin...... no meed to compensatye, tense shoulders, grip bars let alone waggle them around......

Relax, go with the flow. DONT try TOO hard. DONT give yourself more work than you need.

4/ Gloves / Warmth
Thick gloves keep your hands warm; thin ones let you feel what you are doing with the controls. Horrible dilemah between the two and a compromise has to be found. If you have cold hands, and if you have diddy hands, they are likely to loose heat more readily...then they will go a bit numb, and again, you will compensate by gripping harder and tensing more.
And worth noting that if you keep your main body temperature up, then your hands wont go as cold as quick, so its not ALL in the gloves, and the solution to cold hands isn;'t always thicker gloves... and extra vest or jumper can be obliquely the way to go.
But, find the compromise between warmth and 'feel' and work on maintaining feel, again, you can relax a bit, knowing you can feel what you are doing, not be so nervouse and not working so hard or gripping so hard.

5/ The 'normal' wrist possition
Saving simplest to almost last. Get on the bike, put your hands on the grips. LOOK at your wrist angle. NOW open the throttle fully open. Look at your wrist angle, again.

Twist-grip throttle rotates aprox 90 degrees around the handlebar between fully closed and fully open.

The MOST comfy wrist angle is as you grabbed the twist grip at the beginning, THAT is the 'neutral' wrist angle.

But you have aquired that agle at the tick-over 'rest' possition. You need to rotate back from that angle to open the throttle tyo get the bike moving, and while riding, you will be going away, and perversely the less comfy direction away from that natural wrist angle to hold the throttle where needed to maintain road speed.

And for SOME reason, a LOT of learners dont think either, to rotate thier hand a bit BEFORE they grip the twist grip so that as they open the throttle they come back to the natural wrist possition around normal riding throttle......

And are often TOO scared, (in the death Grip!) to change thier grip possition around the throttle tube!

CAN be done, you loosen the grip and 'walk' the grip around in your fingers.

6/ Heads Up! & RELAX
where you look is where you go.
Keep your head up, and look where you are going. Good advice for a LOT of newbie riding faults; especially that learner-Launch-wobble. Bike wobbles you stop looking where you want to go, start looking down at the floor, and thats where you fall!
However.... not so confidfent with teh controls, learners cast glances down at levers a lot, hunt for switches, and looking down at thier hands, you tense.... and it STARTS in your kneck, goes down through your shoulders and into your hands.

Head up, loose kneck, dont strain against the wind and every little force change on the bike. Relax, loosen up, and go with the flow.

Be like a rag-doll. If you are rigid, then you cant absorb the motion, damp it out, and you will magnify everything and expend so much more enery FIGHTING all the forces rather than going with them, letting them work for you. And you are back into the cycle of being tense, and nervbouse and tending to grip too hard and work too hard.

And while you feel it in your fingers, that will be becouse thats where the loadings get concentrated, in some of teh smallest muscles in your body, but those stresses and strains are coming through your entitre body, and starting with your kneck and shoulders.

Roll your kneck, let it go loose; Slumpo yoru shoulders, let them hang loose. Take hold of the bars, and let your elbows slump and HANG LOOSE.....

Fingers will follow...

And your riding will become SO much 'easier' as well as better, as you find that you are more comfortable AND more in control, and things will start to fall into place, and as confidence builds, get better and easier and better and easier, in a self helping spiral rather than self defeating one.

But go look at the controls...... have a fiddle, and play with some spanners. makes. you feel like you have DONE something practical and physically useful, and its not just 'all in your head'.
____________________
My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[dungbug]

[P.]

I use 1 finger and no clutch

[bluepixie93]

[Clanger]

[Slacker24seve...]

Using the clutch on and off in heavy traffic, after I've already been riding for a long time starts to ache my wrist and the back of my hand a little bit.
____________________
Triumph Daytona 675 track bike + girlfriend's Honda Hornet 600
Selling a hack/winter bike for less than a grand? PM me.
Banger rallies are ace