Neck pain and cervical tension on the bike
Neck pain on the bike appears when the bars sit so low, or so far away, that you have to hyperextend your neck to see the road. Holding that for an hour loads the suboccipital muscles at the base of the skull. The fix is to raise or shorten the front end and move weight off your hands and back onto the saddle. It is usually a matter of one or two centimetres, not a new bike.
- How common
- Joint firstLevel with knee pain
- Usually solved in
- 1 session10 to 25 mm of bar height is often enough
- What we measure
- Torso anglePlus cervical and thoracic mobility
- Service
- €180Full bike fit
The area on the diagram
Which part of the fit this complaint belongs to
Every point links to its own complaint
Where it is decided
- Usual cause
- Bars too low, or a stem that is too long.
- What we adjust
- Bar height, stem length and angle, saddle setback.
- Related measurements
- reachtorso angle
What is actually happening in your neck
On the bike your torso leans forward and your head, about five kilos of it, has to rotate upwards so that your eyes stay level with the road. That sustained cervical extension is the least natural posture your body adopts all day.
The more aggressive the position, the more degrees of extension you need and the harder the muscles at the base of the skull have to work. It starts as tension, turns into a burning between the shoulder blades, and ends with you riding along staring at the tarmac.
It builds slowly, which is why people put up with it for so long. Almost nobody turns up after one bad ride. They turn up after a season of cutting rides short, or of finishing them and wishing they had not started.
The five causes we find almost every time
- Bars too low. Inherited from the bikes of twenty years ago, and from copying the positions of professionals who train twenty-five hours a week.
- Stem too long. It stretches the arms, drops the chest and leaves the neck to compensate.
- Bars too wide or too narrow. They change the angle of the shoulders, and with it the tension in the trapezius.
- Saddle too far forward, or nose-down. It tips weight onto the hands and tightens the whole posterior chain of the neck.
- Limited thoracic mobility. If the upper back will not rotate, the neck ends up doing the bending for it.
In the anatomical assessment we check your cervical and thoracic mobility before we touch the bike. Then, with 3D kinematics, we measure the real torso angle and the height of your eyeline while you pedal in the position you actually ride in, not the one you pose in.
The answer is rarely dramatic. Ten to twenty-five millimetres of bar height, or a stem a centimetre shorter, changes the whole experience of a long ride. The point is knowing how many millimetres, and on which of the two.
We also look at how you really use the bike. Someone who spends five hours on the hoods needs a different front end from someone who rides half the ride in the drops. The position that gets measured has to be the position you spend your time in.
When to see a healthcare professional first
If the neck pain comes with tingling down the arm, loss of grip strength, dizziness, or pain you also have off the bike, that is no longer a question of position. A bike fit does not replace a medical diagnosis, and we will say so.
If that is what we see, you will hear it at the interview stage, before anything gets moved on the bike.
Questions about this complaint
Will raising the bars make me slower?
My spacers are already maxed out. What is left?
Can it come from the helmet or the glasses?
It only hurts after two hours. Is that still the position?
Does this sound like your case?
Tell us when the pain shows up and on what kind of ride. We will tell you whether a fit solves it before you book anything.