Numb hands - gloves or fitting?

[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.

[Blue_Fedora]

I was experiencing serious sporadic numbness and didn't know why. I'd try loosening my grip... releasing the handlebar w/one hand and wriggling it around (uhm... the hand... not the handlebar! LOL!!!)... doing shorter rides... etc. Nothing was helping. Finally I did some internet searching and decided that perhaps the gloves (Pearl Izumi gel) were the culprit. I happened upon the Spenco Ironman Elite T.2 ladies gloves and read where they help by not compressing the carpal tunnel so numbness doesn't happen. I thought perhaps it was all hype but I found several BNWT pairs on ebay for half the price of retail so I figured it was worth a try. They arrived last week and I wore them for my metric-century ride this past weekend and I can honestly say I experienced NO NUMBNESS WHATSOEVER... during/after a 62 mile ride!

These gloves made a huge difference and I am so glad I gave them a try

[OakLeaf]

Wow, I always wore Spenco gloves "back in the day." Had no idea they still made them, I haven't seen any in probably 20 years. I'll have to look harder.

[Catrin]

Are these the gloves? They do sound interesting, and I am tired of my too-tight PI Gel gloves.