Wear cycling gloves tight?

[lph]

Remember that gloves are for protection more than comfort. The guy who built my race frame, actually, crashed while tooling around campus without gloves and basically couldn't use his hands for a couple of weeks while the road rash healed.

O yes. I crashed on gravel once (ow!) (and I wasn't even riding fast!), thought it was a great idea to stop my fall with both hands (OW!) and basically removed the skin from both palms. Not deep, but hoo-boy was that painful. Especially when it got infected. I ended up with a whopping huge bandage on each hand for at least a week. And it stung like crazy. Since then I get very very nervous if I find myself riding without gloves for whatever reason.

Like the time I'd taken them off after a rain shower because they were soaking, and was toodling along with my usual casual grip along the sides of my flat bar. Had to maneuvre around a sudden pothole, slipped off one end of the bar because I had wet hands and no gloves, veered around madly like an idiot and cracked a rib on my own handlebars. Thank heavens there was no-one behind me to run me over. Thank heavens the Darwin awards wasn't taking nominations atm.

[Crankin]

I have come to the conclusion that gel anywhere is a death sentence for me; I can't stand it in gloves, bar tape, saddles.