Sore hands

[D4MJT]

Just a bit of advice really.

I usually ride anywhere between 7-20 miles in a single ride, twice a day commuting. On evening leisure rides I'm usually between 30-40 ish.

Yesterday, with the good weather, I did a 62 mile ride, which was pretty nice, and thoroughly enjoyable. However, Ive only just gotten away without having blisters on the bottoms of the palms of hands, the right one has broken the skin a bit but hasn't blistered.

i wear fingerless gloves when cycling, is this part and parcel of covering longer distances, or should I be making some sort of adjustment to my handlebars to move my weight around etc?

Cheers

[TonyHetherington]

How padded are you gloves?

I had problems with my hands and got some very very heavily padded gel gloves (Endura) and they worked superbly. After a while though my hands got used to it and now I don't wear any at all

[D4MJT]

They're not really very padded? They're a pair of old mountain bike gloves I had from years ago but they've always done the job. The material is thick enough but there's no gel part or anything, that sounds quite interesting.

I'll have a google for some gel padded affairs!

[Bobley]

My hands hurt if I ride (a road bike) with padded MTB gloves on as often there's a seam right in the high pressure zone. I now use a thin pair of Ergon MTB gloves which are smooth and unpadded in the palm (hence making them a bit pants for MTB use).

You should have a look at the setup of your bars too. It may be that they're too low or far away? I got a shorter stem and it took a lot of pressure off my hands.

[Mr Will]

D4MJT said:

They're not really very padded? They're a pair of old mountain bike gloves I had from years ago but they've always done the job. The material is thick enough but there's no gel part or anything, that sounds quite interesting.

I'll have a google for some gel padded affairs!

It's about padding in the right places, not the amount of padding. A reasonable pair of road gloves would be my first port of call.

[Disco You]

Get some decent gloves.

I recommend ones with padding like these:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/altura-progel-mitts-short-...

Rather than models with more of a "pocket" of padding.

[BMWBen]

I find it more comfortable without gloves. Only wear gloves when racing in case I have to put my hands on the tarmac

Hands will typically toughen up after a few days. Also, try to grip the bars more lightly maybe.

[D4MJT]

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll try some padded gloves like those suggested and see where I go.

Ben, I don't really fancy the idea of riding without to be honest, I've done 1100 miles this year so far, which seems a lot to me, obviously not by others standards, and I've managed not to fall off so far, but this road bike malarky is a fair bit faster than my MTB was and I don't fancy my raw mitts being the first thing to slow me down when I do inevitably meet the tarmac.