How much will gloves help?
 

i just got my new road bike (Giant OCR2) a couple days ago and today i went out and rode 40 miles. this is the longest i have ever ridden and i am pretty sore.

During the ride my hands were hurting a bit. i was changing hand position about every 10-15 minutes and they still hurt, then i started to feel a slight tingling in them, almost a numbness. Is this because i wasn't wearing gloves? Will a pair of gloves make this problem go away? What are some good gloves that are priced fairly reasonably (20-25$)

Also i don't have a jersey. Is a jersey just a comfort thing because i have a polyester t-shirt that i use for backpacking that i wear that wicks away sweat good, but will a jersey really help my performance any? The poly T flaps around a bunch will a jersay be alot tighter and more aerodynamic? What are some good jersyeys?

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

yes, by all means gloves will help, especially road bike specific gloves. Pearl Izumi has some nice ($20-30) gloves with good padding. you also might want to check you seat, if you seat is tilted too far down, you will be pushed into your handle bars. try tilting your seat (up towards a neutral flat angle or up to a positive angle if it still hurts) but do it in small increments the more flat your seat angle is, the less weight your hands will have to support.

as for a jersey, the shirt probably does a good job wicking away moisture, but a nice fitting jersey will not flap around and may feel better. cannari (spelling?) has some nice inexpensive jerseys ($20-40) and they are nice for a beginner. check out nashbar and performance they tend to have good sales on jerseys and gloves, and your LBS may also have some sales

Yes, gloves can help, but there is a great difference amongst folks as to what kind of gloves they like. But, more importantly, are you changing hand positions (moving from the bar to the hood and perhaps to the drops) and keeping your fingers relaxed and your hands loose?

Personally, I like a very thin, non-padded glove. I have very big hands(I can hardly get them into XL gloves) and the padding of some gloves seems to make the pressure worse. But, others like a high degree of padding and "gel" in their gloves.

You can get a wide variety of gloves on any of the web sites. I always get mine on sale and buy a whole bunch at one time. I like the Specialized non-padded gloves. www.nashbar.com or www.performancebike.com, for a couple.

Good luck with your biking. I am assuming that you had a good professional fitting so that your bike fits. Also, it is quite common to have all your muscles stiff after your first 40 mile ride. Don't worry too much about it right now.

Nashbar.com has Specialized Air Wave gloves on sale for $9.99. I prefer Pearl Izumi White Lines, but have a couple of pair of Air Waves that feel very similar and well made. They are an excellent bargain. If you want to try out a jersey, Nashbar has seconds of their own Coolmax jersey for $15, and if you are lucky enough to wear a small, they have some Bellweather jerseys on closeout for $6! Neither of these are top of the line, but they are good starters. I have a Nashbar jersey. Very well made and comfortable. Now shorts are different. Don't scrimp too much here. If you are going to spend money, go ahead and get something decent.

In my opinion, gloves offer some comfort, but they aren't the final solution.

The advice by DnvrFox to focus on your riding style is good. Relax your fingers. Relax your elbows.

Also, check the handlebar height. If they are too low, you will put too much load on your hands which causes them to hurt and go numb.

Of course, part of it is just getting used to it and builting up your hand muscles and strength - just as you build up the rest of your body for long rides.

Jerseys and bicycle tights actually do help performance. I denied it for a long time, but now have to admit that it does work. The tight fit and sleek materials do reduce wind drag to a noticeable extent. Do bike jerseys wick away moisture faster/better than other clothing? It depends on the material comparisons. Coolmax and other materials do work well, but you can get good T-shirts of similar material from hiking supply stores as you pointed out

My hands start to go numb, (one at a time, usually left one first) about 30 minutes into a ride, no matter which bike I'm on. I bought a pair of gel pad gloves - they give me an extra 5 or 10 minutes before the numbness starts. I'm a little disappointed, I was expecting a better result.
Moving hands around on the bars every few minutes seems to be the best solution. I also try to keep my wrists as straight as possible, this seems to help, too.

If you get numbness in your hands, the odds are very good that no pair of gloves are going to help.

Instead, check the fit of your bike: (a) Is your saddle angled too far forward, forcing you to put too much pressure on your hands? Set the angle back very slightly. (b) How are your handlebars set up? Most bikes come out of the shop with the bras rotated down, which is great if you're racing crits or if you spend all day in the drops. If not, rotate the bars up slightly so the tops of the hoods are parallel with the ground. (c) Is your stem too low? Low stems look cool, and some riders [like me] prefer the flat-backed position, but a lot of riders don't, and a low stem can pitch you forward, placing pressure on your hands. Flip your stem if it's threadless. (d) Is your stem too long or too short. This is a common problem. Either will force you to put too much pressure on your hands.

I like gloves because good ones help absorb road shock and I find that, on long, hot rides, my hands chafe when they get sweaty. I find that I also get a better grip with gloves, and I like having the extra protection in the event of a crash. But numbness is usually caused by something else.

Gloves are most usefull when you take a spill and get road rash. You can live with it on your legs or sides, but when you skin the palms of your hands, you get to find out who your real friends are.

They wont cure a bad position. Many modern road bikes are set up with a very deep aero position, the bars more than 3" below the saddle. This style can put extra weight onto the hands. Check your overall position to make sure it is appropriate for yopur style of riding. For non-racing riding, a slightly more upright touring style can be more comfortable.

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/fitting.htm

Once you have your general position set up, there is lots of fine tuning you can do, such as the angle of the bars in the stem, the angle and height of the brake levers , the style of bar (deep or shallow drop). This can take a long time to get right.

You also need time for your body to adapt to riding distance. Stick to 20 mile rides for a week or so, till you get the feel of your bike.

Michael is right! I fell a couple of weeks ago and landed on my left side, and right on the heel of my left hand! I had to bail out because my hand hurt so much, but it got better in a couple of days but it still hurts a bit where I fell. However, had I not had gloves it would have been worse for sure! It would have also been skinned and that would have made things miserable.

Some people can manage without gloves, but you have to be one of those people who have hands with a bit of padding in the palms. I have flat palms, no fat on my hands at all, so I need good padding.

Thd downside of gloves is that you get that silly tan with white hands and people make jokes or ask if you play golf.

Depends on how big you are as well.

I am a pretty huge dude - and I just recently flattened out the stem on my comfort to really put me in a more forward position. This now puts my rather sizeable weight forward, onto the bars.

I did not realize how much padded gloves helped until this morning when I used my full finger gloves (a bit chilly this morning), and they have no padding at all.

Within a short amount of time, I was feeling it, and moving my hands around like a magician.

There is a certain mental aspect to wearing all the cycling gear as well, tends to get you a little more pumped up and ready to go when you get all decked out and pull on the gloves. IMHO of course, your results may vary ;)

Well said. I find that wearing all of the cycling specific gear offers motivation and spurs me to greater achievement. i want to have the proper adjustments to my equipment. I want to ride with good form. I want to ride faster and farther.

That's only because we know we look ridiculous and that, if anyone caught us, we'd be humiliated. :lol:

I think the number one thing about the gloves is the safety aspect. I saw one of my friends slide out at 45 mph and get scraped up pretty bad (enough to ensure an ambulance ride), but he was lucky that he was wearing gloves, because the road sheared away the fabric rather then his skin. A doctor at the hospital said without them he may have had permant damage. So after that it's gloves all the time for me.

I don't think gloves will solve the "numbness" issue at all. That is a matter of how you ride and how you set up your bike (position). Gloves do make you more comfortable though because they elimate some of the road shock.

I wear gloves for the saftey aspect. About 3 weeks ago i had a 45km/h crash with some pretty bad road rash. But my hands were saved by my gloves, all the layers(about 5 or 6 layers of foam/leather/fabric) were burnt through expect the very last layer of fabric. So I always were my gloves more for saftey than comfort. Gloves are also usefull for wiping sweat off your forehead. My advice is to buy some.
Stew

I was thinking the exact same thing. :D