Utah MTB

Posts Tagged ‘Safety’

A regular complaint from cyclists is that their hands feel weakness, clumsiness, cramping and pins and needles after a long ride. These symptoms often indicate a condition known as handlebar palsy, a nerve compression syndrome in the hand caused by bearing weight on the handlebars.

Handlebar palsy effects both MTB and road cyclists. This condition was first described in cyclists by researches as early as 1896. More recently studies of the injury’s occurrence in long-distance cyclists have found that symptoms of nerve compression prevalence are as high as 70% (Dettori and Norvell). The term palsy has been regularly used to describe this condition because the riders’ hand develops muscle paralysis. Handlebar palsy particularly refers to the loss of muscle function in the hand.

Interestingly, cyclists who experience handlebar palsy may be unaware they are causing significant nerve damage until a severe nerve lesion develops. This is because easily recognisable symptoms of numbness, pins and needles and pain may not always accompany other less distinguishable symptoms, such as hand weakness and loss of dexterity (Capitani and Beer).
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By Jim Langley

Pity the poor bicycle seat. Few products in the history of sports have taken such a bum rap. Prostate problems. Numbness. Boils. Infections. Chafing. Even impotency! You name the malady and it’s likely been blamed on the pedaler’s perch, the bike saddle.

Some criticism is justified because any reasonable person might assume that if you buy a good bike, you get a good seat. In fact, you might not even give the seat a second thought and start logging big miles immediately. And, if you develop pain and discomfort, you might cling to the notion that it can’t be the seat and simply keep riding, figuring that if you pedal enough, the aches and pains will disappear. If you’re lucky, that might happen. But, it could also be a bad mistake — the type of oversight that could cause many of the problems mentioned above.
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There are a lot of ways to improve mountain bike safety. Some will argue, including myself, that wearing a helmet is the single most important step you can take. However, the second most important step should never be overlooked; you should always ride in control. Riding in control not only helps prevent crashes, it keeps others on the trail safe as well. When you ride out of control, you loose the ability to adjust to the terrain and environment as you pass through it. This can and does lead to dangerous crashes and injury to yourself and others.

Mountain biking is inherently dangerous and we all like to push the limits sometimes, but there is a fine line between pushing the limits safely and pushing them recklessly.
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