Right, did 12 hour solo at 24/12 last week and my hands still don’t work properly! At one point my left hand got so painful i couldn’t change gear and had to use my right hand palm to push the paddle of the left shifter.Now this clearly isn’t a good thing,so what do you find good ,comfortable and supportive.Not very keen on really fat grips though. thanks for any ideas.

any of the Ergon grips, so good you will not need gloves.

I get very bad pins & needles in my hands.
If I don’t take steps to prevent it, I’ll get it within 20 minutes.
If I do, I can ride 24 hours solo.

What works for me;
Use bar ends and change your hand position as often as possible.
Take one hand of the bars as often as possible, shake it, curl and straighten your fingers.
Relax your grip as often as possible. A lot of the time, if you’re pedalling steadily or coasting down hill, you don’t need a firm grip. Just rest your hands on the bars with your fingers wrapped round lightly.
Relax your neck and shoulders. This is the big one for me as I often find myself tensing up. If I consciously drop my shoulders, it makes a big difference to my hands.
Push a bigger gear. I notice this mainly on the single speed. If I’m cruising on the flat, I seem to put more weight on my hands as there’s less resistance under my feet.

Ergon grips are good,i use them but i still get some troubles, but only with one hand but then I ride rigid forks, but as graham says just keep moving hand position, and try avoiding gripping too hard!

Ergons get my vote. Running the GX1’s on both race bikes and love them. Options aplenty on hand positions.

I spent a bit of time trying different grips and ended up putting on some Ergon GS-1’s. Combined with some bar ends, they tend to keep my hands and wrists happy up to 24 hours and I can’t see me taking them off.

If you do go with Ergons, be prepared to spend a bit of time playing with the angle of the grips.

Gripshift ?
(Do they still make them?)

Ergons +1, also agree it takes time to get the angle right. I found the best position actually has the “wing” flat bit at a right angle to my arm. Seems to work way better on the descents too.

For years, I used to use Race Face Good and Evil grips.

Like MTG says, moving your hands around is key. I don’t like bar-ends much so I only use them for multi-day races (15+ hours per day). Even without them, though, you can use various hand positions e.g. lay yours hands flat over the brake reservoir and levers so your palm isn’t even on the grip anymore.

Set-up and riding style can help too. You shouldn’t be using your hands to hold your body up, you should have a very light touch.

I’ve just tried Richey foam grips and they seems pretty decent. Not as comfortable as RF with bare hands, but pretty good with gloves, plus light + cheap.

ESI chunky silicon grips for me. I use any gloves but have a couple of pairs of pro ones that have been good recently.

Ergon grips.

Gloves, I’m still trying to find ones i’m very happy with. Dakine and spesh body geometry are the best Ive tried.

have you tried riding without gloves?

have you tried riding without gloves?

I haven’t. I know some downhillers do, can’t imagine it would be comfortable for long distances though.

Ritchey WCS foam grips work for me (they do two different shapes now).

Ergons. They really do seem to help people with the exact problems you describe. I don’t get hand numbness but I bought some GS1’s for my new bike anyway just for long ride comfort…their design makes an awful lot of sense when you look at it.

[list]ESI grips are good. They don’t wear hard like the normal foam grips and in the night, when it gets damp, they stay grippy.

I find the Endura Singletrack glove good, gel padding to keep pressure off the nerve canal in your hand, but not so much it feels ungainly, like the similar padding in the Specialized body geometry gloves.

I used to suffer with numbness in my little fingers and a little in the finger next to it until I hit this formula. I used to find a flat bar and bar ends worked as an alternate as moving your hands around helps too and this offers different positions until I got in the habit of looking after my hands during an event,

Enjoy!

Rob
http://www.bigrobracing.co.uk

Used various Ergons for about 3 – 4 years then swapped to Esi Chunky plus a set of bar ends for longer stints.