Numb hands - gloves or fitting?

[Crankin]

Catrin, it may well be the gel in your gloves. I cannot stand any padding in my gloves; I mean none. I wore a pair that have a very small amount of padding the other day and I was in super pain.
I found a pair of Botranger gloves that are perfect. I was so desperate, I paid full price at the LBS and now hope I can find them cheaper on line. I keep wearing my very old Terry gloves, because they are so worn out, the tiny bit of padding they had is worn out.

[Catrin]

Catrin, it may well be the gel in your gloves. I cannot stand any padding in my gloves; I mean none. I wore a pair that have a very small amount of padding the other day and I was in super pain.
I found a pair of Botranger gloves that are perfect. I was so desperate, I paid full price at the LBS and now hope I can find them cheaper on line. I keep wearing my very old Terry gloves, because they are so worn out, the tiny bit of padding they had is worn out.

I had not thought about this, but it is certainly a possibility. I could always try my weight-lifting gloves and see if there is a difference - now these DO fit quite snugly and are supposed to. One pair is a little looser than the other, will try and remember to grab them from my club before leaving town tomorrow morning (am meeting with my trainer right before leaving town). There really isn't much in the way of padding, they just help me with my grip on free-weights and bars.

I also checked out my Ergon grips, and realized that they didn't match - the grip on the right side (my most painful side of late) was much higher than the left side - it had probably rotated that way gradually enough that I had not consciously noticed it. There is a bar-end mirror on the left side which makes it more difficult for that to happen. The grips now match, so will see if that helps. I don't know how to adjust the actual bars, but the grips are easy enough.

I just hope the rain stays away from Yellow Springs for much of the next three days - they have it in the forecast for all three days So am packing equal amounts of hiking and biking clothes, and hoping not to have to overly use the former

[malkin]

Hey Crankin!
I am still in love with my new (and completely not padded) gloves and now have worn them cycling, driving, playing on the playground, etc. They haven't gotten very wet yet, so they are not yet an exact cast of my hands, but I'm sure it is coming.

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=37496

[Catrin]

Malkin - what kind of gloves are those?

I managed to get in a 12 mile ride today between the showers - NOT what I had planned but hey, you gotta take what you can get Also got a nice little hike in a nature preserve.

It was only 12 miles so it wasn't a good test, but I wore my weight-lifting gloves (no closure at the wrist) to see if that would make a difference in the hand pain/numbness as they have no padding at all. My fingers still got numb, but my palms were much better and there seemed less overall pain. I don't know if this is from the non-padded gloves or adjusting the Ergon grip for one of my hands - time will tell. It may well be both, and I accept that I just have to deal with a little pain - such is arthritis. If I can weed out the other causes of pain and numbness though then I will be happy.

My fitter is willing to take a quick look at my Trek once we are done with the LHT and transfer what settings he can, and check out the bars, at no charge. Considering how much the fitting/adjustments to the LHT are going to run me I will let him do this I think the bars just need a minor adjustment to ease a funky wrist position...

[Zen]

Does that bike have flat bars?

[Cataboo]

Catrin, rip the padding out of those PI gel gloves. I rip the padding out of all my PI gloves, something about the pads make my hands go numb. I was mountain biking with a friend last week and after she started complaining about her hands being numb, I removed the padding from her PI gloves, and the numbness went away.

Are you holding on too tightly to th handlebars? a death grip will also induce numbness. Are you leaning too much weight down onto your wrists? Make sure your wrists are in an absolutely neutral position - not bent back towards you when you're holding the bar. Keep your elbows slightly bent to absorb shocks. Move your hands often. If your seat is tilted downwards a bit, sometimes you slide forward and use your wrists to push you back - which causes your wrist to go numb.

[Catrin]

Does that bike have flat bars?

Yes, this is my Trek 7. 6 and the fit needs adjusting slightly.

Catrin, rip the padding out of those PI gel gloves. I rip the padding out of all my PI gloves, something about the pads make my hands go numb. I was mountain biking with a friend last week and after she started complaining about her hands being numb, I removed the padding from her PI gloves, and the numbness went away.

Are you holding on too tightly to th handlebars? a death grip will also induce numbness. Are you leaning too much weight down onto your wrists? Make sure your wrists are in an absolutely neutral position - not bent back towards you when you're holding the bar. Keep your elbows slightly bent to absorb shocks. Move your hands often. If your seat is tilted downwards a bit, sometimes you slide forward and use your wrists to push you back - which causes your wrist to go numb.

I will check these things out at my next ride. I suspect my wrists are not in a neutral position, though closer to it than it was. I find that I want to ride with my thumbs stretched out along the Ergon grip rather than around it - unsure if that might be related to it. I am very happy that today only my right fingers went numb and there was no pain in my palms and no numbness there unlike the other day. I will rip the padding out of my larger PI gloves and see how that goes now the experiment with the weight lifting gloves seemed helpful.

Thankfully this is VERY different from what happens with the road bars - the arthritis is in my palms so I have to avoid a certain hand position entirely - and sadly the road bars puts me into that position perfectly...the Ergon grips totally prevent this position

Also it is my left hand that is the arthritic one and I have ZERO problems with it on this bike - this makes me very happy!

[Vega]

I kind of suspect that it may be a grip issue too. I know my hands get fatigued and numb on white-knuckle mountain bike rides where I'm squeezing the bar. This also happens when I'm driving my car in terrible thunder storms in lots of traffic. One suggestion would be to relax and wiggle your hands every so often. This will allow blood to flow through your hands more easily and hopefully prevent numbness.