How to avoid hand strain when landing with a road bike?

Question

Whenever landing from a bunny-hop or jumping a couple of stairs, my hands strain just above the wrist. How can this be remedied?

Things I have tried:

• Warming up before going out.
• Position the handlebars, so that the hoods are parallel to the ground, so that my writs are straight. This results in extremely uncomfortable drops position (wrist rotate at an extreme angle if I want to clear the brakes).
• Staying relaxed on impact. Absorbing as much as possible with the legs.
• Keeping the wind away from my joints.

Things I haven't tried:

• carbon forks
• gel gloves
• lower tire pressure (35x622 tires @ 7bar)
• landing back tire first

_{Meta: This is no question, whose answer can not be verified quickly. I have upvoted all the answer and will, or will not, accept one as 'best' some day.}

Answer 1

I used to experience this when I switched from doing a lot of mountain biking to BMX - you really have to learn precisely how to absorb the impact. I thought I was doing it right until I no longer had a suspension fork. Simply absorbing with your legs isn't all there is to it.

You want to land flat and carefully set the bike down. What I mean by that is extending your limbs - just like suspension travel on a full suspension bike would extend once airborne. As you land, the bike needs to touch down the front and rear wheel simultaneously, or ever so slightly tail heavy (touch much and it will slap the front down though, and that's no good!) And the moment before impact your should already initiate absorbing the impact; this is the "careful set down" part. As for the absorption part, we're talking 95% in the legs. Get your weight back. The picture below really shows what I mean. If your weight is way back, the front wont impact as hard. Yes, the rider would've landed very tail heavy to absorb the initial impact of a drop of that magnitude, but the point here is shifting your weight back. His hands/arms are not in a position to absorb much of anything, rather, they're a pivot in the suspension system that is his body.

Of course, you've always got the disadvantage of the road bike geometry and proper riding position. But, you can also see in the photo how much space is available in the cavity between the rider's body and the frame. There's plenty of space for a road frame in there!

Hope this helps you!

Answer 2

Two things:

• Learn to absorb the impact. Just before the bike hits the ground need to start retracting your hands and feet. Google "youtube street bmx" and see what they do with their bodies when they land to flat ground.
• Your body should be supported 90% by your feet and 10% by your hands.

Answer 3

Sounds like your wrists are taking too much impact.

Try placing the bike on the ground rather than slamming it down. Reducing the violence of the landing will help all round.

Gloves are a great idea but won't really help much with this.

Your hand/hood position might benefit from a review too - I personally have my knuckles quite vertical, and the wrist moves in the direction of the thumb and little finger.

At the other end my ankles rotate, after the initial push-off, and only then would I flex my elbows and legs to raise the bike, to gain height.

You might get benefit from doing some hand/forearm exercises too, to increase the control inside the wrists. Hand crunches (those squeeze things) might be a good start.