Recreational & Family - Bike Gloves, and numb toes.

I have a Gary Fisher Tiburon S which is a Hybrid type bike. I like it a lot, and it pulls my 315 lb frame down the road without too much grief. What I would like to know is if anyone uses fingerless gloves with the pads on the palms. I am good for about 20 miles, after that my hands start to bother me, even changing my grip doesn’t help that much.
Also last time I road my toes were getting numb. I do have toe clips, and I was wondering if there is anything I can do to prevent this. I am going to be working up to a metric century ride in Cincinnati, and it would be a drag to have this happen the whole ride.

Mark.

The gloves will help a little, but shaking you hands (one at a time of course) will help more. I don't know about the toes it may be that you would be better off with larger peds. (IIRC that bike comes with very small clipless ones).

Joe

Gloves help most when you take a spill and scrape your hands over the road. Use them.
Add-on bars are useful,either bar-ends or aerobars.
Toe-clips need to be used with care. Use the stiffest-soled shoes you can and do not cinch the straps tight.

Move your hands and shift your arms to a new angle and position occasionally. Check your shoulder and neck position too. Don't tighten up. Relax your shoulders and neck.

Are your shoes too tight? Toe clips? Are the straps pulled too tight? Try clipless (like two-sided SPD) to see if the toe numbness goes away.

I wear fingerless gloves most of the time, which help protect the palms, but don't do much for joint stiffness. About every 10-15 minutes or so while riding I shake out my hands (as if they're wet and I'm trying to dry them) one at a time. That seems to help me keep my hands and wrists loose and last longer. I also switch hand positions frequently (like every couple of minutes), which is easier with drop bars. You might look into adding bar ends or extensions or whatever they call them to give you some alternate grip choices.

bigmark; sounds like your putting too much weight on the hands when you ride. Try adjusting you saddle nose up just a tad or moving the saddle a simdgin closer too. Do you use bicycle shoes when riding? These might help. Also being a heavy weight ( like I am ) your saddle post might slip down a litte during a ride. I have to adjust mine all the time. ( might be causeing you to move forward on the saddle to compensate.
good riding!

Bigmark, I definitiely second the various hand shaking ideas. I am also a big rider and I have found that some days my hands will have some numbness and hand shaking definitely helps. The padded gloves will help. When it is cool in the morning (50 or lower) I will pull a pair of cheap cotton work gloves over my cycling gloves. It's surprising how even a little bit of windchill can make my fingers and hands feel numb. Often I take the work gloves after a few miles as I warm up.

As for the cold or numb toes the suggestions above seem to cover a lot of it. If the shoes and toeclip fixes don't work, you might want to check out your socks. I have found that my feet sweat too much in cotton socks and after a few miles my feet and toes get cold and numb. Once I switched over to poly socks my feet stayed drier and warmer. On cold days a second pair of socks keeps them toasty.

And definitely keep and eye on your seatpost -- Bobo is right that for us heavier riders it will want to sink down. I usually have to reset mine at least once a day. After you've ridden a fair bit you'll be able to feel it after riding just a short distance, but it is easier to check before you get on.

For the hands you could try raising your handlebars and tipping up the seat. For the feet remember it doesn't do any good to push down when the pedal is at the bottom of the stroke. Work on pulling up on the pedals too, even if just a little.

Well last night I rode another 20 miles, and it was much better. I made sure I moved my hand position often, and that solved much of the numbness in my hands, and when they did go numb I shook them out. As for the feet, I figured my toe clips were to tight across the top of my foot, so I bent them up a little bit (not easy with plastic clips) and that was definitely it. Maybe soon I can con my way into a set of biking shoes and pedals. As for gloves, I will be getting shorts first. That will bring me to my next posting. Thanks for everyone’s help.

Mark