Originally Posted by ajst2duk
I've seen a lot of new riders complain of numbness in their hands, both me & my wife experienced the same thing when we got into road cycling.
Our first thought was that we needed padded gloves, these never seemed to help. Eventually against all intuiative judgement, I found that riding without gloves got rid on the numbness. I found a pair of Pearl Izumi racing gloves that had no padding & tried those, they were great & now we both use them.
So, I would be interested to see how many roadies used padded gloves vs those that use unpadded or no gloves.
I've found hand numbness to be more a function of unconsciously squeezing the handlebars than of any kind of glove padding. Try to relax your grip on the bars as much as possible, only tightening it on a steep climb or when riding over rough terrain. A light relaxed grip will do more to combat numbness than any bar or glove padding.