Pain in the Neck

Everyone was so helpful and informative in response to my question on GPS units, I am once again coming to the wealth of knowledge that is this forum.
I have done a search on "pain", and have only found back pain, and butt pain. Fortunately, I have enough padding on my butt to not have a problem there .
I get a really intense pain across the top of my shoulders. It starts at the base of my neck, and spreads across the top of my shoulders. I don't notice it while I'm riding , just once I get off, and only after really long rides(more than a couple of hundred miles). The pain is quite intense, and my shoulders and neck are really stiff - I need to apply heat to get loosened up.
Has anyone had this problem? - is it a downdraft from my stock windshield, my grip on the handlebars, my riding position, seat position . I feel comfortable while I am riding and only notice it when I stop (unfortunately I am not crippled enough by it to avoid making dinner). I sit with the heating pad across my shoulders for a couple of hours, and all trace of pain is gone by the next day.
Thanks in advance for any and all help

Janice wrote:

Everyone was so helpful and informative in response to my question on GPS units, I am once again coming to the wealth of knowledge that is this forum.
I have done a search on "pain", and have only found back pain, and butt pain. Fortunately, I have enough padding on my butt to not have a problem there .
I get a really intense pain across the top of my shoulders. It starts at the base of my neck, and spreads across the top of my shoulders. I don't notice it while I'm riding , just once I get off, and only after really long rides(more than a couple of hundred miles). The pain is quite intense, and my shoulders and neck are really stiff - I need to apply heat to get loosened up.
Has anyone had this problem? - is it a downdraft from my stock windshield, my grip on the handlebars, my riding position, seat position . I feel comfortable while I am riding and only notice it when I stop (unfortunately I am not crippled enough by it to avoid making dinner). I sit with the heating pad across my shoulders for a couple of hours, and all trace of pain is gone by the next day.
Thanks in advance for any and all help

Janice,

I had the same problem, except that mine started before I got off the swing. Mostly, it's gone away. I solved it in several ways. First and most importantly, I got used to my scooter. I don't know if it's true for you, but I started riding a year ago (have put on close to 10K miles since then) and for the first four or five months, I was in pain after about two hours. That doesn't happen anymore. Next, I got a taller windshield. My husband noticed that my head bobbled around a lot, and that was resolved by cutting down on windshear. Finally, I got Manic Salamander weights, which mostly eliminated handlebar vibration. I can't tell you that it's totally resolved, but it really is much better and completely manageable.

Hope this helps.

Mandy

You may be griping too tight or it may be your riding posture.
When you go fo a ride that you know will produce this result,
Take a careful look at your position and the intensity of it.
Constantly keeping your position tense instead of relaxed will
do that to you.

Maybe take breaks more often?

Yeah i got the same problem from my heavy helmet, switched to a lighter helmet and improved a lot but still had pain at the base of the neck. So i started neck stretches and cracking my neck more and eliminated the pain. What you got is called a welder's neck, you can google it.

Thanks for all the tips.
I think the problem may have been my grips. The grip puppies everyone uses are not sold by any stores up here, but following tip from a motorcycle forum here, I bought a pair of SUPERCYCLE FOAM HANDLEBAR GRIPS. They are 7/8" in diameter. Price - $4 bucks.
My husband and I just got back from 300 mile jaunt and I have hardly any neck pain. The increased diameter of the handlebars, plus the decrease in vibration seems to have made a big diffference in how hard I'm gripping them

Tension in your shoulders is often the cause of pain in the back of the neck. One way you can check if you're riding tense is to allow your elbows to droop. Just relax your shoulders while riding and let your elbows sag. If they don't drop you aren't tensing your shoulders but if they do you are. One easy way to check for tense riding on a motorcycle is to squeeze the tank with your knees. If you're shoulders are tense doing this will cause your elbows to drop. It's a very effective way to remember to ease off on the tenseness which will cause pain on a lengthy ride. I do these checks often as I ride my Goldwing on long rides. Often I find myself tensing up, I don't know why because I'm comfortable and not nervous on my bike but one can tense up without knowing it or for any known reason.

Thanks exavid. I'll try that. I'm sure part of it may be tension. I've seen, read and heard about so many really stupid and avoidable accidents in the past few weeks around here I seem to be on high alert all the time. There has been a rash of drivers blowing stop signs and taking out motorcycle riders (apparently mostly on cell phones), and no ride seems to be complete without a near death experience.
I don't know about your area, but here, cell phones are not banned yet, and every time I get a driver drifting ( or swerving)
into my lane, they are on a cell phone. There is a law coming in to ban hand held devices, and it seems everyone is trying to squeeze in as much air time as possible before the ban starts.

exavid wrote:

Tension in your shoulders is often the cause of pain in the back of the neck. One way you can check if you're riding tense is to allow your elbows to droop. Just relax your shoulders while riding and let your elbows sag. If they don't drop you aren't tensing your shoulders but if they do you are. One easy way to check for tense riding on a motorcycle is to squeeze the tank with your knees. If you're shoulders are tense doing this will cause your elbows to drop. It's a very effective way to remember to ease off on the tenseness which will cause pain on a lengthy ride. I do these checks often as I ride my Goldwing on long rides. Often I find myself tensing up, I don't know why because I'm comfortable and not nervous on my bike but one can tense up without knowing it or for any known reason.

What a great tip! thank you so much.

Don't bank on anti cell phone laws to prevent people from distracted driving. Both Washington and Oregon have laws against the use of handheld phones while driving and it hasn't made a dent in people phoning or even texting while driving. In Washington it's a secondary offense in that the police can't stop you for yakking on the phone but they can cite you if they stop you for some other infraction. Texting offenders is harder to catch because they can do that with their phones in their laps. Doesn't it make you feel safe to realize that Internet access and even movies are now becoming more common on cell phones? Be careful out there.

Same in the UK; all the tightening of the Law and raising the penalties did was make people use the other hand to hold the phone so it was less obvious!
Belgium's got even stricter Laws which are rigorously enforced but drivers still do it.

I'm not sure if I'm an old fogey, have a limited circle of friends, or if I'm just anti social, but I find I can go for 2 or 3 hours without talking to someone. Maybe my life isn't exciting enough to give a minute by minute report. I was actually on an elevator with someone once who was giving a friend a blow by blow description of her trip in the elevator - door is closing, each floor that went by, how many people were getting off etc. When we got to her floor, she told her friend that she was at work and would call her back from her desk since her boss didn't permit cell phone use in the office. I just don't get the need to stay that much in touch.

Our car has built in bluetooth so if you have your phone on when you get in the car links with the phone automatically so if someone calls all you do is press a button on the steering wheel to answer. No need to take the phone out of your pocket, you can leave it anywhere in the car and still call via voice commands. I don't make many calls from the car and don't get many. On my Goldwing or Silverwing I can feel the vibration of the phone in my pocket but normally don't answer it until I get stopped somewhere if then. My wife and I have the cheapest cell phone plan available from our carrier and never use up the minutes.

I know this sounds suspicious, but sometimes I even turn my cell phone off!

Hey, Janice. I tried those same foam grips for a few rides but eventually got rid of them. Found them too thick and didn't feel as " one with the bike" as I like. I'm searching for a good deal on the Kuryakyn ISO grips but here in Canada haven't come across it yet. If anyone knows who sells them here let me know.

Jeff, a couple of online places are gpbikes.com and strictlyrecreation.com. They are both Canadian - GP Bikes is in Ontario, and my husband and I have bought some items from them. (at the store not online)
I've only gone on a couple of rides with the foam grips - my hands definitely felt the difference - no cramping etc. I'm not used to the added thickness, but I put over 12,000 km on with the original grips, so I'll give these foam ones a couple more runs.
My husband had the ISO grips on his Kawasaki Meanstreak, but got rid of them after a week and went back to the factory ones - he said they felt thick and dead.

I have ISO grips on my Goldwing. I like the throttle boss but the grips are a bit on the thick side. I've had the foam type grips on a couple of other bikes but they don't last very long before they deteriorate. I find the OEM grips on the SW comfortable and they don't cause me pain at the base of my right thumb so I'm considering replacing my ISO grips on the GW back to OEM style. One irritation with the Kuryakyn ISO grips is the chrome began to wear off after about three years use. At the price of those things the chrome ought to last.