Sore Neck Whilst Cycling

The neck is one of the areas of the body which can suffer from strain and pain when riding on the roads, with hours spent in the saddle - with the neck and head held at an unnatural angle. Having experienced neck pain ourselves, and also speaking to many customers who mention neck pain - we created a blog post to answer some of the questions around this subject.

First of all, it’s important to remember that our bodies are not designed to ride bikes, we were designed to walk on our two feet. The neck takes the biggest brunt of the unnatural body position we find ourselves in when we ride.

When riding, the neck holds our head in a position where it needs to be for us to see the route ahead. The most famous case of neck pain and discomfort when cycling involved Michael Shermer - who raced 3,000 miles across America, to the point where his neck muscles stopped working entirely, and he had to complete the mammoth race wearing a specially designed neck brace.

Luckily, very few of us will suffer to this extreme - and with a few changes to riding and body position, neck discomfort and pain when cycling can be largely avoided and dealt with. One of the biggest causes of neck pain, is an overreach to the handlebars of the bike, which causes unnecessary strain on the neck, to deal with this - handlebar height needs to be raised. Raising handlebars can be done in a number of ways, with stem spacers providing one of the easiest and most effective solutions to raising handlebars.