hi again
i've just started some longer rides as i adjust to my bike and have noticed that after i have some neck pain.Is this normal from holding your head back to see where you are going? given i am just recreational at this point should i be putting my bars up a little higher than the seat?

It might just be that you're not conditioned to maintaining a good riding posture for extended periods of time. If that's the case, it's not uncommon and will go away as you build more strength and endurance by riding more.

Some other possible causes to check:

1. Make sure you're not riding with a visor on your helmet. This will cause you to have to raise your head even higher and can strain your neck (as well as costing you valuable style points)

2. Make sure your helmet is fitted correctly and is not riding too low in front

3. Check that your glasses aren't sliding down you nose and forcing you to tilt your head back further

Basically, just look for anything which might require you to tilt your head up further than needed.

However, if you've recently increased your mileage, you probably just need to build endurance. Increase your mileage in gradual increments - your body will adapt to the new position but it doesn't happen overnight. Forcing the issue just leads to injury.

- khill

hi again
i've just started some longer rides as i adjust to my bike and have noticed that after i have some neck pain.Is this normal from holding your head back to see where you are going? given i am just recreational at this point should i be putting my bars up a little higher than the seat?

The cause can be multi-faceted. First off, it's not a natural thing to hold you head up as you do when riding. This aspect is partly getting the muscles used to doing their part.

One thing that helped my wife when she started was to not be trying to look too far ahead for long periods of time. I focus 10-15 feet ahead at the most. The further you try to look down the road, the more extreme the pull on your neck.

You may need to start with a higher stem and work your way down with time. You can get adjustable stems that go from 45 degrees and down. They're not light or pretty but work as a temporary solution.

Generally, the bars are even to as much as 4" below the height of the seat. Completely depends on you and your flexibility/comfort.

In addition to the good advice from the other posts, one sure way to get neck pain is to stay in the same position for a long time. Work on looking to the side by turning your head, check behind by turning your head, etc. Just moving around will help a lot. You also can do some stretches by twisting your head, doing shoulder shrugs, pushing your head against your hand in various directions, trying to touch your ears to hour shoulders, etc. All of these things will help in your adaptation.

We have a chiropractor in the group. I'm not one, but I sat in on a presentation from a chiropractor about "warming up" and "stretching."

As we age -- damn! I hate that line! -- as we age, we lose mobility to the rear in our head/neck. You can improve this mobility by moving your head down and back repeatedly, slowly, gently to stretch the neck and increase range of motion. Side to side moves help too -- both rotating sided to side, and leaning the head side to side.

I find what makes my neck stiff in riding is hunching shoulders, stiffing arms. That's easy to slip into, especially on longer rides. We settle into the ride and support our upper body with the arms, shoulders.

Relax the arms and shoulders often. Check your muscle tension in the arms, shoulders, and of course the neck.

Change your riding position often. That's key to longer rides, and the reason you have drop bars on a road bike -- so you have room to move around and shift weight support.

Higher stem -- racers have solid core body strength, solid leg strength. They use core strength to apply energy to the legs. This results in the legs supporting a lot of upper body weight. When you're riding like a bat out of hell you're not resting on your arms. Accordingly, the arms, shoulders, neck in road racers aren't supporting a lot of upper body weight -- because it's going into applying energy to the pedals.

But a more sedate rider (Is that what we are now?) supports weight on the bars, shoulders, arms, and it gets to the neck. A lower stem increases this load.

The comments above about adjusting position so you're not cranking your head way back applies too. Sit up on the bike if you need to look around. But for the most part, the road bike position is designed for aerodynamics and for looking at the wheel in front of yours.

Taller stem. That helps. I have a cruiser and had the bars level with the seat -- wide cruiser bars. I found myself pretty comfortable, but realized I was supporting upper body with the arms. But I have this fat, wide, cushy seat on the cruiser -- I raised the bars way up, and sit entirely upright now. Much less arm and shoulder tension in the riding position. Ahhhhhh, but I'm only doing about 5 mph in a 46 inch gear, balloon tires, and a fat saddle.

Neck discomfort is a part of the WHOLE riding position. It all works together, and as you become aware of how it works, and become more adept on the bike, it will sort out -- so long as you're not fitted on the machine with some sort of weird position.

Don't be afraid to put the bars a bit above the saddle height. Racers will scoff, but you're not racing.

The most common cause of neck pain in my experience is when people ride with saddles too far forwards. This forces you to take more weight on your hands, arms, shoulders and neck. As you become tired, the strain begins to show, causing pain particularly between the shoulders and in the neck. Sort out your saddle position, THEN sort out your reach to the bars, don't try to sort out your reach by moving the saddle forwards. Try to have a light touch on the bars, rather than having to support half your weight.

The most common cause of neck pain in my experience is when people ride with saddles too far forwards. This forces you to take more weight on your hands, arms, shoulders and neck. As you become tired, the strain begins to show, causing pain particularly between the shoulders and in the neck. Sort out your saddle position, THEN sort out your reach to the bars, don't try to sort out your reach by moving the saddle forwards. Try to have a light touch on the bars, rather than having to support half your weight.

What olr1 says here is correct, but it can be mis-read.

There are TWO "too far forward" positions in the saddle adjustment.

One is nose tilt, up/down, down being "forward." Up/down on the saddle can mean nose angle or saddle height. It can get confusing for newbies.

The other "forward" is saddle fore/aft position, fore being forward.

BUT, as olr1 notes, you don't want to adjust fore/aft to postion arms on the bike!

The seat should be level or nearly level. This is the rule and slight variations are made to account for riding style and riding application. You don't want to adjust the saddle nose up/down to address neck and arms. That adjustment is for pelvis position.

The fore/aft adjustment needs to address the position of the knee over the pedal axle when the crank is horizontal to the floor. This adjustment is not about arm/bar position.

Reach on the bars is adjusted/addressed in frame size, top tube length, and stem length. Rule of thumb, and it's a broad one, is that distance from the nose of the saddle to the back edge of the bars at the stem should approximate the distance from elbo to end of the fingers.

If the distance is too long, you'll stretch to reach the bars and end up supporting weight on the arms, which will lead to a stiff neck. But in any case, you don't want to move the saddle fore and aft to accomodate this distance. You need to fit the stem length and frame top tube length.

Yes, sure, if the saddle is nose down, or the rider is sliding down the nose of the saddle, it will result in weight on the arms -- and a stiff neck in the long, long run. But saddle fore/aft is not the way to adjust postion between the saddle and the bars. That's done with the stem once the rider is correctly positioned over the pedals.

Lots and lots of links on google about "bike fit."