QUESTION: Do I need to wear gloves when riding my road bike? They leave me with tan arms and white hands, which looks weird. —Linda A.
RBR’S STAN PURDUM REPLIES: No, there’s no requirement that you must wear gloves. Even some professional road bike racers don’t use them, claiming that barehanded riding gives them more “feel” for the bike and its controls. But there are darn good reasons to wear them, and primary among those is the protection they provide your hands if you crash. In a crash, your hands are often the first part of your anatomy to contact the pavement, and you can skin them up badly if they are unprotected.
Of course, most of your rides don’t include crashes, but they all include keeping your hands on the bars to control the bike, and especially on longer rides, this can result in some hand numbness. The padding on the palms of the gloves helps to combat that.
Gloves also improve your gripping power on the handlebars, especially on hot days, when you may be sweating heavily or when you’re bouncing over rough surfaces.
And while it may sound indelicate to say it, gloves are a cyclist’s handkerchief. Most gloves include some absorbent material on the thumb or back of the hand to wipe one’s sweaty brow or snotty nose. This, of course, is a good reason to own more than one pair of cycling gloves, so that you can throw the ones worn most recently into the wash and ride with a clean pair.
Several years ago, my brother Scott and I rode from Kentucky to Michigan. At one stop, Scott somehow lost one of his gloves. We had no extras with us, so for a day, Scott pedaled with just one glove on, and he didn’t like the feel of the bare hand on the bike. As soon as we found a bike shop, Scott bought another pair.
Still, you can find riders who won’t wear gloves and who, for the most part, do okay without them, so it comes down to a matter of preference. I’m on the “wear them” side of the argument.
Thankfully, there are no “glove police” in the cycling world.
In cold weather, of course, long-fingered gloves are essential as bare hands become too cold and stiff to safely operate a bike.
Stan Purdum has ridden several long-distance bike trips, including an across-America ride recounted in his book Roll Around Heaven All Day, and a trek on U.S. 62, from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, the subject of his book Playing in Traffic. Stan, a freelance writer and editor, lives in Ohio. See more at www.StanPurdum.com.
In my experience, in the event of a crash a rider is not likely to use the protection of gloves than a helmet. If you think wearing a helmet is a good idea then you should be wearing gloves too.
Hmm . . . except one’s brain is in one’s head, and not one’s hands!
Gloves protect in case of a fall, the hands are the first part of the body to touch the ground. In winter they will protect you from the cold. If it is very hot and your hands sweat, you can slip when holding on to the climbers, and if you choose the back of the gloves in a fluorescent color, they will help the turn instructions you make to be seen better, and they will always help to have better palms on your hands. fine and not rough with hardness.
The fluorescent color on the gloves to help your turn signaling to be seen is an excellent additional reason to wear gloves. In the winter, I use work gloves in flaming orange for the same reason.
I had a nasty crash a few years back. The way I fell, my left palm took the brunt of the force and destroyed my padded leather palm of the glove, leaving my palm just bruised and not ripped up. Although I have always ridden with gloves that lesson convinced me to never ride without them.
X pro and U tuber Phil Gaimon provided a frightening clip of what his hands looked like after suffering a crash sans gloves. It’s not for the feint of heart. To all those non-glove wearing amateur cycling professionals out there whose livelihood depends on having functional hands, please take a look. (I’m looking at you dentists, surgeons, etc.) And, just like helmet-less crashes, they happen when least expected and they only have to happen once for tragic results.
I vote for gloves for all the reasons other comments have said.
One thing about washing gloves, wash them in cold water and do NOT throw them in the dryer, let them air dry like you do, or suppose to do, with your padded shorts. The heat from the hot water and from dryer will ruin any padding that is used.
I’m on team bike gloves. I also wash them after every ride, which is a habit everyone should follow.
yes on gloves
all the time
I always wear padded gloves, and in addition to what has already been said they seem to reduce pressure on the hands, resulting in less hand numbness or tingling. They also absorb some of the shocks into your hands resulting from hitting cracks in the road, small holes, etc.
In addition to all the other reasons mentioned, gloves also help protect the handlebars and any cables routed under your bar tape from corrosion risk from due to your sweat. This is a smaller risk than the others, but it’s not nonzero, and bar tape can hide problems here until things fail catastrophically.
Might I also suggest choosing stronger sunscreen for the easily tanning arms.