Has anyone else had this / know what I should do?
Pain in the backs of both hands, when doing long Alpine or other descents. I had this this summer, when doing the Transcontinental Race, so fairly extreme conditions well outside what I normally do. Basically, on any of the long descents, which take 30 minutes to an hour, the backs of my hands would get really painful. I would have to stop a few times on a descent for relief, and I started to dread the descents as I knew what was coming.
It takes a while for it to come on so I've never had it with UK hills as none I have ridden have been long enough. It's a new thing - I didn't used to get it, on the same bike with the same position, a couple of years ago when I previously did long descents.
I thought about disc brakes to lighten the braking, but I'm not convinced it is from braking, I think it is more from the weight on my hands in a descending position. It was never a problem when riding long days on flat or rolling terrain, or climbing for that matter.
Googling just brings up loads of stuff about ulnar or medial nerve palsy, which I have had before so know it is not that. I think I have my wrists reasonably straight in my descending position. I wonder if there might be some sort of hand strengthening exercises that I could do to ward it off?