This has been bothering me for awhile - does anyone have any thoughts on what works to combat the numbness that starts about 10 minutes into every ride?

I ride a hybrid bike, so it may be the upright handlebars that are killing me.

You may be putting too much of your weight onto your hands. Pretty common mistake for a newbie. Try shifting your weight back onto the saddle. Also, keep your elbows slightly bent (not locked!) With a hybrid, there are not a lot of places to move your hands around on, you could consider adding bar ends to your bars to give you an alternate position. These are the things you attach to the ends and you commonly see on many mountain bikes!

Hope this helps.
L8R

Good suggestions. I do lock the elbows quite a bit. Probably reaching too much.

Would it look stupid to put the regular curved handlebars on the hybrid bike? I've always disliked the handlebars on this bike, but never enough to actually do anything about it.

You should be able to put any bars you want on (though you may need a shim for some bars). The proble you might have is the brakes but conversion kits are available to allow you to use road type brakes with v-brakes.

Richard

Thisistheyear

I've found a couple of thingd help
Check to see if the bars are high enough
padded gloves
Relaxing you hands or droping one at a time to get the blood flowing
Stand up on the peddles for a few seconds
Adding the bar ends or drop bars would give you more posisitons for your hands.

HTH
Joe

I agree with the other respondents. You need bar extensions or drop bars, and you need to "bend the elbows"