Originally Posted by
sstorkel
Back when I bought my first flat-bar mountain bike, I found that my hands were going numb after only 15-20 minutes on the bike. The problem, it turned out, was that the sweep of the handlebar didn't match the natural position of my wrists. I bought bars that had more "sweep" and the numbness went away. You might take a look at bars like the On One Fleegel or Mary, or Misfit Psycles' NUbar or FUbar. I ended up using Bontrager's 17-degree "Big Sweep" bars; sadly, I think the Bontrager's are no longer available.
Yeah, I've found moving my hands to what would amount to the position of holding bar ends helped when I was having problems with a set of gloves, and works well some times regardless. Whether you need bar ends to offer more control while in that position or not is another question, I've never used them, and I wouldn't be holding the bars with neutral wrist position rather than the normal pronated grip on anything that required more control of the bars, but suppose that could help.