Newbies--wear gloves!

[TrekTheKaty]

I started wearing gloves because my hands tingled on short rides. They helped. Then I tried clipless pedals, and during the learning curve, learned what gloves are for! Protecting your hands when you fall!

A friend got a "new" hand-me-down bike from a neighbor. He went to hop over a curb he hopped over every day on his other bike and fell--tearing up his hand up badly--he didn't have on gloves! You always ask newbies if they wear a helmet, but not if they wear gloves!

I had my first "wreck" this weekend. While riding on the road, I slowed down at the top of a hill to wait for two more riders. When they caught up, I cut across a seam in the road and went down. A scraped knee, a few bruises, but nothing serious. Today I have a big bruise on my hand--that could have been BAD if I hadn't had on gloves.

I know--you don't ride on the road. Your hands don't tingle. You don't ride that fast. You don't plan on falling It's cheap insurance--BUY GLOVES (and keep them in your helmet, so you don't forget them).

[fastdogs]

I'm a believer. Last week I crashed on the trail. There were lots of loose, sharp rocks, and of course I tried to catch myself with my hand. I had a deep bruise in the heel of my hand, it was sore for about a day. I can imagine what it would have looked like without the gloves- these rocks have cut the sidewall of my tire before. I keep my gloves inisde my helmet, so when I put the helmet on I also put the gloves on.
vickie

[earthgirl]

gtk!!!

i always thought gloves were to prevent your grip from slipping or something...

[Jiffer]

Gloves can be for many things. It's different for everyone. Some say it helps grip the handlebar once your hands get sweaty. I don't have that problem. Instead, my hands get sweaty FROM the gloves. Some say wearing gloves is more comfortable for your hands because there is padding in the gloves. My handlebars have cushy gel stuff under the tape, so this is a non-issue for me. Some say they help with numbness in your hands. My gloves actually caused my hands to go numb, instead of the other way around.

So ... I don't where gloves.

However, if I tried DIFFERENT gloves, I might not go numb. Protecting my hands from a fall is the only reason I would wear them. I've been intending to get some new gloves, but I MUST have PINK! And my LBS shop only had one pair in that didn't fit me. They are, however, ordering a couple of other pairs for me to try. I do wear gloves in the winter because of the cold so, if nothing else, I'll wear them then and, hopefully, get so used to them by summer, I'll keep wearing them. I do get comments all the time about not wearing gloves. Someone commented that I was like the guys in the Tour de France. I never noticed, but I guess many of them don't wear gloves.

[Flur]

When I was young and just getting into biking as a child, my uncles were big bikers. One of my uncles hit a patch of grease on the road and went over his handlebars. He put his arms out in front of him and and his hands hit first. I saw what that looked like - skin sheared down on the palm - and the horrible healing process that comes with it. This is why I wear gloves.

[Cataboo]

I have a lot of wrist pain, so I had bought pearl izumi symphony gloves because they claimed to have ulnar nerve support or whatever - the padding in the gloves made my wrists worse, so I stopped using them - put padded gel & cushy tape on my handlebars.

Then I had my first (well, only) big crash... skidded a fair amount across the road and lost skin on arms and legs and on my palm.

The very first thing I did was stop riding in sleeveless shirts and yank out my pearl izumi gloves & operated on them. I yanked out the padding, so they're just leather on the palms and they don't irk my wrists anymore. They're fingerless, so my hands don't overheat, and I like the cut of the pearl izumi's around the wrist - they're not tight on the wrists, so they don't agravate my wrists.