Thumb pain

[Shawn Mc]

After a day of pretty hard moto, everything is sore as usual, but lately the palm beneath the thumb area on both hands feels like its been hit with a hammer. Sore like and over worked muscle.

What Im wondering is if this is a condition of a bad bar bend or my fork setup.
Im running the High YZ bend protapers, and seem comfortable enough. My fork was done by Enzo and I have the sub tank mod too. The fork feels pretty good really, especially on big hits but other than being a little hard to settle during turn-in, (they seem to stay way up in the stroke) they dont noticably beat me.

Im just wondering if anyone else experiences this. Its also unique to my YZ 426. My CR500 doesnt do this at all.

 

[yzer67]

I had the same problem till I changed grips.

 

[DEANSFASTWAY]

Maybe you can soften them a bit ?

 

[marcusgunby]

Shaun what bars did you run on the CR?it sounds like your forks just need a bit of fine tuning.Have you tried runing less compression damping and or less rebound?

 

[Shawn Mc]

I have been hesitant to back the compression damping off because of the whole woop issue. I dont want the front to dive too much in the woops. But I think your probably right.

My CR has a CR bend on the bars, but feels almost identical, but that a bad comparison on my part.
I was struggling with a pretty bad arm pump issue and I changed the grips out from Scott half waffles to Renthal full diamond med compound.

Do you think it could be sweep of the bars? thinking about it, I couldnt tell ya if I wanted more sweep or less. Seems like less would position the bar away from me, and cause more inner palm contact verse outer contact. Does that make sense?

 

[marcusgunby]

Im not sure to be honest but i like a very straight bar.How about backing off the compression a bit and not attacking the whoops too much-see how your hands feel and if they are generally better then maybe it is the forks.Maybe back the compression off but add a bit(3mm) of preload to stop the forks diving?

 

[Eric82930]

I think it could be the bars. I notice the contact patch of your hands on the bars changes when the bar is rotated forward and back. The farther forward the more it touches the outer hand. Back will make the bars contact the inner part under your thumb. Bars that sweep back farther also make the effect more dramatic.

In your case I would try rotating the bars forward and try it. It will move the pressure point to the outer part of your hands.

 

[DEANSFASTWAY]

Maybe try those foam inserts that you glue to the insides of the grips you can get them at BMX shops. I always got real bad blisters if I didnt consciously tell myself to grip the tank with my legs. I also tried using the gripper seat covers but I would always come home with torn up underwears .