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Comment by TrueGeek | Hacker News Reader

I did Paris Brest Paris in 2019 (finished in 89 hours) and got Sherman’s neck for the very end. I saw other riders suffering from it, and one woman who had put her hair in a long braid and then fastened that somehow to hold up her head.

Luckily, for me, it came at the very end and I was able to finish.

Worse was that I compressed my ulnar nerve and had loss of feeling and tingling in my left arm for 6 months.

Lots of good memories from that ride.

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First of all congratulations for completing the Paris Brest Paris. I had a much smaller problem with a new bike. I compressed the tendon of my left thumb on a 6 hours ride (imagine a 89 hours one. ) It got too weak to open a clothespin, no chance to shift a MTB derailleur. It took one month to fully recover. I permanently solved it by raising the handlebar to transfer some load to the back. My question: do you know if some long distance riders compromise the setup of their bikes to lower the chances of those kind of physical problems?

Arguable that's not compromising the setup but in fact the correct one. Fit is critically important to something that forces you into a singular position/movement pattern for so long. Not to say the body doesn't adapt but it does have limits and nerve compression and hitting the (physical) end ranges of motion are cases where it's not so great at doing so.

I would agree. I spent a lot of time working closely with my bike shop working on fit. Many sessions over a couple years learning things about fit that you don't really notice until after your first really long ride.

Glad that worked out for you. The ulnar nerve issue is no joke. I compressed both of mine on my first 4h ride. It took 2mons to get back to guitar with special clip picks and more bike fit knowledge and strength training than I expected.

Even finding a diagnosis was a struggle.

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