I locked-up the front wheel, on gravel, without mitts, once. Thankfully another rider had a first aid kit.

We're just leaving winter here, now. I'd better start looking for a good pair of fingerless mitts, 'cos i'm fussy. I love my mitts when i've found the right ones.

:eek:
I can understand gloves helping road rash, just not so sure something that's going to cut through an inch of flesh is going to be stopped by a bit of fabric!

That's why I wear steel mesh riding gloves dood...kidding.

One thing is for sure. If the pros start doing it, the masses will follow.

Typical BF MEEEEEOOOOOW kind of response. The OP asked a question without making a value judgement.

My summer fingerless gloves wore out. Never replaced them. Trained, raced, crashed without them for 15 years or so without problems.

Got a new pair last year. I like being able to wipe sweat, but still ride without them sometimes.

I always wear gloves in cold weather though.

This is an interesting thread. My first year of riding was pretty casual and I didn't wear gloves. The next year I got kitted up and have been wearing gloves for every "real" ride since. I feel naked heading out without something to protect my hands. During mountain biking I wear thin long finger gloves in any temperature. It is hard to believe there could be much aero benifit to going gloveless, but marginal gains and all.

You lose quite a bit of heat through the hands, they are a bit like cooling fins. So I guess they will have to find a balance between how much heat they want to keep and how much they want to lose to the air. So with long sleeves and gloves they might lack a bit of cooling. When it's not freezing it's not really a problem it's just uncomfortable, but these guys like to suffer.

Probably in my first decade of riding, I never wore gloves. Didn't really think about it. It was the 1970s. Helmets weren't a big thing back then either nor any of the full kit people get today.

I guess if your handlebars are taped with smooth tape that give cushion, they don't cause any blisters.

But since the late 1980s I bought my first pair of cycling gloves after I joined MEC.

Oh come on. Those guys are racers first... sure. But just as importantly they are cycling billboards. Apparently some teams failed to receive a glove sponsorship. And as a result.... NO GLOVES,

But some of those guys have massive wristwatches and some done. Whom am I to believe?

Seriously I generally wear gloves, but sometimes I forget them. Theyre nice for wiping sweat and glasses (mine have terry cloth on the outside of the thumb) but its really not the end of world if I don't have them.

Left thumb for sweat, right thumb for snot....and never the twain shall mix.

Just curious...how much of difference can gloves weighing a couple of ounces really make? Will they achieve a measurable gain in time and speed by not wearing them? Not trying to be a smart a**, I'm just having a hard time believing it, and would like to know it it really does.

When you consider how much we all know presta valve caps slow you down, and the fact that gloves are many times the weight and wind resistance, this should be a no brainer.

Of course, like valve caps, dimpling can make a big difference, so if you must wear gloves, look for dimpled models.

Competitive swimmers shave their legs and body hair due to resistance too.

Maybe its fashionable?

It is hard to understand from a marketing perspective, gloves have a huge markup, far more than most bicycle accessories.

Although from an injury perspective, more things to fix in the ER more $.

More opportunities for medical industrial complex as well.

I'll keep wearing gloves, even to the grocery store. ;)

Used to ride without gloves, fingerless or not.....Now I ride only with gloves. I sweat and my hands slip without gloves on. I ride Motorcycle too and always were gloves in case of crash....they do save your hands since instinct is to stop fall with hands. The are also great for wiping sweat and snot......yes they should never mix. :)

We do bump and fall drills (on grass) with our juniors to try to train out the instinct. It's safer to keep your hands on the bars. If ejected, tuck and roll.

I haven't found any comfortable gloves. Maybe its from only trying some from big box *mart stores but every pair wife or I tried would make our fingers go numb after a while.

I have found that gloves with padding make my hands go numb, so I will only wear unpadded ones. They still make my hands numb, but it takes longer.

Same here.

Yup. My mantra when I raced, "don't let go of the bars until after I hit the ground". I raced it the days of toe-straps. Tucking and rolling was awkward at best. Not being a gymnast, I just accepted that skin lost related to fewer bones broken. And the more skin lost, the shallower each wound and faster heal.

Ben

:rolleyes: And so my question would be if someone decides to ask an honest question why would anybody who's made his own personal decision about asking honest questions care why someone else opts to do it differently?

Asked and answered.

See post no. 34, then the conversation in posts 35-39, and again in 44 & 45.

Definitive proof that not wearing gloves is faster: I was running late and would have missed my bus had I taken the time to put gloves on this morning. ;)