Top tips to cure cold hands this winter

Winter riding isn’t always easy, but with a little extra preparation it doesn’t have to be uncomfortable. It might even be fun. Trainers can be useful for keeping up your fitness, but as far as fun and keeping up your skills, there’s no replacement for riding outside. To help you want to keep riding this winter, here are some tips from Edmonton, one of Canada’s colder cities. Reasonably far north and solidly in the Prairies, Edmonton’s known more for its cold than it’s mountain biking scene. But if you’ve spent any time in the city, you know there’s an extensive network of trails connecting throughout the city, that are fun, easily accessible, and, with the growing popularity of fatbikes, open for riding all year.  With such a great network of trails so easily accessible, they run literally through the middle of the city, it’s no surprise that there’s a strong mountain biking contingent in Edmonton. A core group of these riders keep going all year, with group rides leaving Redbike all winter, and interclub rides meeting on weekends. We stopped by Hardcore Bikes and Redbike, two hubs of mountain biking in Alberta’s capital city, for some advice on how to keep your fingers toasty warm so you aren’t just riding, but having fun riding through this winter. If they can keep their customers warm through an Edmonton winter, their advice can probably help you too.

Both shops were quick to recommend upgrading to a carbon bar as a first step. Reduced weight and better feel are fine, but the big bonus in winter comes in temperature. Unlike an aluminum bar that radiates cold through to your hands, carbon isolates your hands from the cold, metal parts of your bike.

Not holding onto frozen metal is a first step to warmer hands, and carbon bars get you there. From there, it’s a matter of experimenting with different glove and grip options to find what works best for you to get the best combination of warmth, comfort, and handling. Talking to Ferf and Cody at Redbike, they recommend a combination of silicone grips and Power in Motion heated glove liners. Silicone grips offer further insulation from cold parts of the bike, and can help if you’re not into spending the extra dough on a carbon bar. They’re also available in different widths to suit different sized hands. Try sizing down in winter to make up for the extra thickness of winter gloves.

Power in Motion glove liners fit under your winter gloves, heating each finger individually. This means they’ll work with whatever type of glove you want, including lobster gloves or thinner shell type gloves, making them very adaptable to the temperature and type of riding your doing. Plus, they’re heated gloves. Anyone who’s ever lost all sensation in their fingers, and the ability to shift / brake with any dexterity, knows how amazing this sounds.

Back at Hardcore Bikes, Steve recommends trying gloves with gel padded palms, like those offered by 45 Nrth. The gel gives you insulation from the cold of the bars, while keeping enough feel and dexterity that you feel like you have control over your bike, not like you’re riding wearing oven mitts. 45 Nrth were early to the fatbike game, and have expanded to offer a range of glove options for different temperatures and weather conditions. 45 Nrth is based out of Minnesota, you can be sure they’ve been well tested in real world, real winter conditions.