Gravel riders - Sore palms advice sought

[Cheeky Monkey]

Worth thinking about your physical core strength maybe? I imagine it's a hard thing to develop for the anticipated duration of your rides.

Cue someone posting the clip of that lady setting the WR for plank

[Jurassic]

I reckon it depends which carbon bars as well. I've not used carbon drops but have/had multiple different carbon risers and they vary massively from brand to brand (and sometimes from model to model).

[Lazarus]

physical core strength

Its certainly not great judging by my attempts at planks but i would rather spend money than work on me
I will add it to the list of things i need to do as well

[voodoo_simon]

I found that encouraged me to rest on the hoods with the bar creating pressure around my central wrist / median nerve area and caused hand pains. Tried some trad bend bars like these below (not my bike unf.), much happier with that transition from a lower-angled bar to hoods. Needs a slightly higher stem so it goes against the slammed look if that matters to anyone..
So rotating the bar (if it's a modern bar shape) down and raising the brakes up might get you close to this.

Been keeping an eye on this discussion as I had (still faintly have) numbness in my littlest two fingers after my last audax. Might fiddle with that.

No-one has suggested carbon bars yet, unless I've missed it. Do we think claims of their damping effect is overrated? Not that I'm going to be trying - I've been through two or three bars trying to solve a shoulder issue, and I don't have the money or time to go through it all again with carbon!

I cycled to work one day with aluminium bars and swapped over for the ‘similar’ bar in carbon and could tell the difference on the way home (same sweep, width, ride etc). I was surprised that I could feel any difference, only changed them as I the carbon bars were cheap

[Specialist Hoprocker]

I've got an 80mm Redshift Suspension stem that I'd be willing to sell as I'm currently gravel-bikeless.

Drop me a message if your interested.

[Lazarus]

Message dropped

[Jurassic]

I've got an 80mm Redshift Suspension stem that I'd be willing to sell as I'm currently gravel-bikeless.

Drop me a message if your interested.

These are very good. I got one a while ago and was a bit worried that it'd be a waste of money but it takes a lot of sting out of rough surfaces and yet isn't really intrusive on smooth surfaces (unless you have a light mounted on your bars when you can see the beam moving up and down).

[Lazarus]

thankfully mine mounts on the fork so wont be an issue

[GregMay]

I was going to suggest general core and physical conditioning.... but if we're ignoring that...sure, buy more stuff. That always masks a problem

[Moder-dye]

I have knackered wrists and have the redshift shock stop on both my road and gravel bike and they make a big difference to me, along with bigger tyres.

I rode my brother's cx bike not long ago for a number of rides when visiting him and I was amazed how harsh the ride was on that with standard alloy bars and 'skinny' 32mm tyres, even on the road.