Types of cycling and cycle gloves

When buying cycle gloves, things to look out for are that the gloves should fit snugly on your hands but they should not be tight to restrict movement and circulation, also when cycling some people say your hands swell lightly, so bear this in mind. Attention to the length of the fingers of the glove should be made, as fingertips will get cold if they are not long enough. If you know that you are going to face cold weather when out on your bicycle, a recommended tip is to wear an additional thin inner glove to help keep the hand warm.

There are many benefits of having bicycle gloves when out cycling, the main one are for warmth, protection and comfort.

Warmth : When cycling in the cold, you are especially vulnerable to wind chill effect. This is where the faster the flow of air over a surface the more rapidly it cools. As muscles in the fingers get cold you will start to loose sensation and grip. Windproof cycling gloves makes all the difference when in the cold.

Protection: If you fall, cycling gloves can provide extra protection in taking the worst of scrapes and grazes leaving your skin intacts.

Comfort: A common problem in cyclists are handlebar palsy and carpal tunnel syndrome. These are caused by compression in your hand and wrist. A good pair of cycling gloves and some bicycle adjustments can go a long way to avoid these conditions.

Fingerless cycle gloves, also known as track mitts. These tend to be very cleverly engineered pieces of clothing, listed below are just some of the feature found on typical track mitts.

• Foam-padded or gel based padded palms to help cushion the hands and prevent blisters.
• Soft, hard-wearing, washable, synthetic / non-synthetic leather, making it the perfect glove palm material.
• Stretch back material like lyca to help for a glove-like fit when wearing the cycling gloves
  
• A Microfleece on the back of the thumb to act as a sweat absorbent brow wipe. great for keeping salt sweat from the eyes.
  

Winter cycle gloves tend to be bulkier than the fingerless gloves due to all the insulating material. A good winter cycling glove tend to have longer cuffs to ensure the wrists are not chilled in the cold, a waterproof and windproof exterior to minimize wind chill and a layer of insulation between that and the inner glove to keep the warmth in. As mentioned earlier wind chill in cold weather can quickly set in and makes all the difference to an enjoyable or hellish a ride.

However, one disadvantage of winter cycling gloves is that the extra padding and insulation tends to reduce your dexterity and grip. More expensive winter gloves go some way to help reduce this drawback.

If you find winter cycling gloves do not provided enough warmth when cycling, there are cycling gloves with in built heater elements to keep your hands nice and toasty. The heat is provide by typically AA batteries and can be turned on and off if hands are getting to hot and sweaty from cycling. The heated cycling gloves tend to have the heater element in the palms, which in turn keeps your fingers warm.

Even after you have purchase a nice pair of winter cycling gloves, you still find that your hands are cold then some cyclists recommend to use an extra inner glove liner. However, liners only effective if they are not too tight. If they result in making either your gloves tight, then the restriction in the blood supply will only make things worse. Some cycle inner glove liners are design to be used by themselves, allowing a good compromise between winter cycling gloves and track mitts in not so cold weather. Silk glove liners offer great thermal insulation properties as well as being light weight and thin.

To help reduce heat loss even further, there are cycling mitts or lobster gloves. By keeping your fingers together they can share the heat and minimize heat loosing surface area. Full hand cycling mitts can be awkward when trying to change gears, which has lead to the development of a half way solution to winter cycling gloves and cycling mitts.

There are many womens bicycling gloves are the market. Again you get the same assortment of winter cycling gloves, fingerless gloves etc but they come in a smaller size to the mans cycling gloves. It is worth noting that some of them even come in the color pink.

On a final note, you will never keep your hands warm hands by only treating the hands in isolation. As when your body core gets cold, it starts to restrict blood to the extremities. So, if you find that your still get cold hands even with bicycle gloves, it is a good idea to start looking at other high loss areas such as the head, neck and front of body. For advice on keeping warm when cycling in cold weather, visit this link