Over the last year I have started to get pins n needles when riding. I’ve changed the grips on my bikes, with a bit of success but now I’m looking at my gloves. Can you recommend me some gloves (road and MTB, summer and winter) that have a serious amount of padding in them.

Spesh BG Gel are excellent, I’d look at your position though if it’s that bad, sounds like something else may be up.

have you tried going the other way for minimal/no gloves/padding?

Chunky padding may not be the answer, I actually find riding my road bike without any gloves more comfortable once its warm enough to do so, and thin tight fitting gloves with a perforated palm on the MTB, lots of fabric and padding forces you to grip tighter, causing issues with blood flow and muscle cramp (IME/IMO)…

Chiba gel gloves work well for me, nice thick gel pads. They’ve got a fairly wide range although I’ve only really tried the fingerless Gel Comfort ones, albeit several pairs going back probably a decade.

I’ve never had a problem with the road bike until I recently swapped my tape over, going for a more minimal feel (gah, I sound like a tool).. During a 100 miler I did last week, the last 20 miles or so were particularly uncomfortable, left hand especially.

I’ve just got some Spesh Body Geometry ‘Grail’ gloves, they seem really good, although I’ve not ridden another 100 miles as yet so can’t confirm they have definitively stopped the problem (I know reverting to the old bar tape would before any one says anything).

I’ve got another set of Body Geometry gloves (the sport which have served me well on the mtb for about 4 years now, again, brilliant gloves 🙂

Cookeea has it, no padding and use ESI chunky silicone grips

Padding just gets deformed eventually and can result in blisters. +1 for no padding and chunky grips.

I tried this and got the BG gel wire tap gloves by specialized (fwiw the wiretap was useless on a samsung screen, but I digress). I combined these with ESi extra chunks and promptly found I needed a death grip because there was so much padding. I’ve since swapped to superstar silicone grips and normal gloves and it’s way better. So…..one or t’other but not both! I’d go for grips first.

Quite a bit of padding:

😆

+1 for ESI grips. Eliminated most of my hand fatigue out of the box. The chunky ones aren’t that chunky so might try the super chunky next time. Also they cut up easily in crashes, however cheapish and most comfortable grip I’ve ever used

Spesh BG Gel are excellent

Agreed, best I’ve used from a selection of many. I don’t like ESIs much, soft but not in a good way to me, so these gloves (mitts) and Cinelli tape and good foam+cork mix grips on the bike I do the longest rides on. Eventually your hands will be fecked anyway and the gel can compress (returns after some time off the bike) but this combo is comfier for longer for me – assuming the bars are in the right place, you’re balanced well on the bike w/o too much weigh on the hands, etc.

Thanks all. Quite a lot to look into there. I appreciate what you are saying about extra padding leads to a stronger grip needed. I’ll have to have a look at how I’m riding, particularly now my “thick” winter gloves are off and I’m using thinner summer gloves.

I find that too much padding can bunch up creating hotspots too.

I have Carpal Tunnel in both wrists and struggle with pins and needles in my index, middle and thumbs. The specialised gloves have a pad which protects the Ulnar nerve (3rd and pinky fingers) so if that’s where you’re getting the pins and needles then they would be worth a look.

My current set up is minimal or no gloves and ESI chunky grips, this is a bit of a sweet spot for me, I used a spare set of gloves a couple of weeks ago which have a thicker and slightly stiffer palm and started to struggle after 15 miles.

Also take a look at how you’re holding the bars, I find that if mine aren’t set up right I don’t grip the bar straight across my hand, so end up with all the pressure concentrated on a small area.

Ergon grips seem well respected too, although I couldn’t get on with them.

Ergon grips are excellent but don’t buy the large size unless you have really massive hands.

I have both the ESI grips and Ergon grips on my bikes, MTB and flat bar RB, but still pins n needles so I’m going to explore no gloves and new gloves.