mdadams1

Anyone have any preferences?

Mike A

hamster

I think it really depends on temperatures. I had good experience with Castelli Lunga at a ride that covered a range of roughly 45 F to 75 F.

Rowan

I use Fox long and short fingered, unpadded gloves. I use one of several different pairs of windproof gloves (one generic, the other Jet Black). For really cold and wet, I'll put on a pair of MEC lobster claws over whatever other pairs of aforementioned gloves I may be wearing.

blacknbluebikes 

Chiba. Also have some pearl izumi's and some econo-nashbars. Chibas have a well-refined design

Weatherby

Over 45F, just regular gel padded short fingered gloves

30-45, I put a pair of wool gloves over the short fingered cycling gloves.

Below 30F, ski gloves over cycling gloves.

Raining and below 55F, neoprene duck hunting gloves.

mdadams1

thank you for your responses. Let's say your hands get quite sore and need some kind of padding? I have used a few that I got at different sporting goods stores and the padding seemed to intensify the pain in the areas I needed protection.

longbeachgary

I just use the cheapest older style PearlIzumi (about $20). I have the new style but the new style has the Velcro that fastens around the front instead of around the back. In some hand positions the fastener digs into my palm and wrist.

Hydrated

I dealt with this problem for many years... went through many different gloves, bar tape, etc...

Then one day I ran across this post by DannoXYZ. When you read this post, pay close attention to the accompanying photos... they really help make sense of the text.

I know it sounds silly and melodramatic, but reading and implementing the practices described in this post changed my riding life. No more hand pain... and I can use gloves or go riding with naked hands... bar tape doesn't matter any more. As a matter of fact, my taste in riding gloves is now for a minimalist glove with no padding. I mainly use gloves to provide grip instead of padding now.

And it dramatically increased the miles that I can ride.

I hope it helps you as much as it did me.

Rowan

You aren't the only one to have benefited from Danno's post. It should be stickied somewhere.

I use unpadded gloves as well because the padding in other gloves I have used over the years creates more problems than they solve. That's why I like the Fox gloves I use.

The issue, as I recall, is compression of the ulna nerve through the heel of the hand. It gets back to ensuring your fit is right, and your core muscles are strong enough to stop your body flopping forward and putting more pressure on your hands.

There is a small section in the Addiction thread in Road at the moment discussing gloves. One of the issues that may increase numbness is the padding which actually further restricts the ulna nerve. However, your grip on the handlebars may also push your fingers further through the gloves, and pushing compress the webbing between the fingers. I notice this even with the unpadded gloves -- even the Fox ones -- with a bit of numbness in the pinkies. I know at that stage the Fox gloves need washing to renew their stiffness and get them back to a snug-but-not-tight fit.

Carbonfiberboy 

I'm liking Bontrager Gel gloves for short finger gloves. They make many different gloves, so anything with the InForm padding. Best I've ever used.

For long finger reasonable weather gloves, rain or just cold, I like my Pear Izumi Elite Softshell gloves. Really wide temperature range. Check the Winter forum for cold weather options.

Carbonfiberboy 

Yes, that's the urPost for hand comfort. Note also the exact bar/brifter positioning and how that relates to the forearm angles in the photos. Modify to suit your forearm angles. Another urPost along that same line is this one, which also helps with hand pain:
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...discovery.html

linnefaulk

I used to just cut the fasteners off. I never had a problem with them slipping off.

Coluber42

I have a real bone to pick with the major brands of cycling gloves. Some years back, the higher end ones started having these so-called "anatomical" pads that, instead of being a reasonably continuous surface on the palm, have these chunks of gel pads in various places. In particular, there is a chunky pad sort of on the pinky side of the palm that is supposed to protect the ulnar nerve (the one that causes numb fingers when cyclists put pressure on it). At least on my hands, the corners of those pads dig into exactly the right spot to give me the beginnings of numb fingers within five minutes where I could go hundreds of miles with the plain gloves before. At first it was just on the most expensive models, but now it is on almost ALL of them, and I have the hardest time buying gloves. It's like some designer at one company thought it was a good idea, and no one figured out that it wasn't before they all jumped on the bandwagon.
Oh, and there are also more seams all over the place, so there are more seams to cause pressure and chafing on the side of my hand between index finger and thumb.
It doesn't matter whether I try the cheap ones, the expensive ones, the men's ones, the women's, they're almost all like that.

Anyway, with that off my chest, my only recent successful cycling glove purchases have been a pair of the absolute cheapest bottom-of-the-line Performance brand gloves that are too cheap for all that anatomical crap and thus more or less OK; and a pair of Giordana ones printed with my local club's logo. They're actually pretty nice. I got a pair of Gore ones where the contoured pads are thin enough to be acceptable, only they're not really good for long rides because the seams near the thumb and index finger get irritating after several hours.

I like to carry a spare pair of gloves for any ride where I consider it worth carrying a spare pair of socks. They don't weigh much and it's worth it to be able to change out of the slimy, sticky ones.

For long-finger gloves, I'm a huge fan of those one-size-fits-all $3 ones you get at drug stores. They're comfortable, they dry quickly, they're ubiquitous and simple, and they keep my hands surprisingly warm. In the winter I either wear a pair of those, or a pair of those plus summer gloves over them, or two pairs of those. Two pairs of those keep me comfortable down to about 15 degrees. Below that I need a third pair, or a windproof outer layer or something.

thebulls

I like the Pearl Izumi Men's Elite Gel Vent Glove [Revision: PI has revised these gloves so that they are probably useless -- they've "modernized" them to just have minimal pads so I expect they will be pressure points. Dang.]

Because the gel pads are vented, the gloves do not get waterlogged when you sweat, and they dry out faster after getting rained on. I used to use some Louis Garneau gloves but over the years, LG fancified them and put more padding in places that seem to make my hands get numb faster (same complaint as Coluber42, basically). I switched to Specialized gloves, but those gloves get waterlogged and once wet they stay wet. Very uncomfortable. The padding on the Izumi's is more "flat" and seems to generate fewer pressure points than on the fancier gloves.

I tried riding with no gloves at all for a few months in 2010, having read somewhere that the padding in gloves can cause numbness by pressing in on your nerves. But my hands went numb at about the 600km point of a 1000km. Usually I have no problem with numbness on a 600km so I went back to wearing gloves.

In the winter I'll wear some lightweight Man***** Silkweight Windstopper gloves down to about 20 degrees and then switch to fleece flip-top mittens below that. The mittens stay moderately warm even when drenched.

Nick

longbeachgary

What a great idea. I'm going to give this a try.