The past couple rides I've noticed my hands start to go numb. Usually it's just my fingers but today it was my whole left hand. Anyone know what's going on?

Hands go numb usually means too much weight on your hands and/or poor wrist position. Also could mean too much padding on bars or gloves.

Stop wearing gloves.

Hand numbness could be a number of things. Personally, mine was solved by tilting the handlebars down a bit more, so my hands weren't at a weird angle while on the hoods.

Horrible advice.

Not necessarily. It's counter-intuitive but more padding is not usually better. Just as with saddles, too much padding means your soft tissue sinks in and your nerva compress, and that's often what makes things go numb.

Maybe larger gloves.

One thing that I know will help: generate more power. Your weight is distributed over three (five) points: feet, butt, hands. If you increase the load on your feet, your butt and hands suddenly get a lot more comfortable.

On my road bike, my position is quite aggressive, but I am completely comfortable on training rides and during races, because I spend so much time generating a decent amount of power. If I go on a 30 minute ride with my kids, where I average 30-50W, my hands and butt are killing me by the time we get back.

+1 to that last part. Slow hurts.

Right, but I would rather deal with a little numbness if it means that I can save my hands in the event of a crash.

I would suggest unpadded gloves.

Is there any other kind worth buying?

Unless we're talking about winter gloves, but that's different.

If your hands go numb, try this ...

1. Sit up fairly straight on the bicycle.
2. Drop your shoulders.
3. Move one arm behind your back in an "L" shape so that your forearm is horizontal (like as if you were signaling the presence of a parked car while riding in the UK).
4. Hold it there for a few moments while stretching your shoulders and neck (slowing tipping your head from side to side, etc.).
5. Move the other arm behind your back and repeat the stretch.

When my hands go numb, I find doing that brings them back to life again. It also feels really good to do that stretch on a long ride ... relaxes the neck and shoulders.


I've also discovered that if my handlebars slope downward ... if they aren't flat on top ... my hands go numb.

So that's what I'm doing wrong!

fify

You could also have too extreme of a drop from your saddle to the bars. I +1 everything else that's been said, esp the overpadded gloves/going slow, but I've found that the drop can be an issue as well if your core isn't used to supporting the weight as opposed to your hands.

Change riding positions as you ride, tops, hoods, drops. umd's point about too much padding might be right. Try no gloves and see what happens. You have nothing to lose. i use padded gloves myself, but no gloves may be better for some people. Experiment and see what works

I stopped wearing gloves a few years ago after I got CF bars and started using fizik microtex (or whatever) tape.

I've heard all the arguments for gloves being about protecting your hands in a crash, not comfort on the bars.

My ride-time to crash ratio is high enough that I'd rather be comfortable riding gloveless during the 10,000 miles I ride between crashes, and put up with some road rash on my hands if I do crash.

Except for weather gloves, regular riding gloves are only required if you are riding with old school aluminum or steel bars wrapped with slippery non-porous tape.

So where do you keep your snot?

My rides for the past week or so have also been plagued with hand numbness. I tried just going gloveless this morning and my hands felt much better. I think it's the over-padding with my gloves plus the padding in the bartape of my CAAD 9.

1+

also you should check the fit on your bike... visit sheldon browns website his got great advice, this wont substitute a professional fit but it will give you some rules of thumb about fit.

my last bike had leather bars, so i bought some padded gloves..this thread made me realize i need unpadded gloves for my new bike!

quit fappin...

Interesting question. Yes, it was a sea change going from gloves to no gloves, snot wise.

Typically, if I don't have enough viscosity for a rocket, it goes to my fingers, then to the street (or my shorts or shirt if it's just a little watery stuff).

evaluate your normal hand positions, if you're "pinching" off the blood flow to your hands by a bad wrist angle, that'll do it.

also, if you can not ride with no hands on the bars, work on your balance, core strength and fit to unweight your front end a bit.

I used to ride gloveness and then crashed. got some Giro Zeros (no padding) and problem solved

Sounds like too much weight on the hands. Try moving the seat back. Move it back so that when you are in the drops, you can take both hands off the bars and ride no handed for a short time, still bent over, without falling forward.