How to Stop Hand Numbness on Long Rides, and the Gloves That Help

To prevent hand numbness on long motorcycle rides, fix the fit before you fix anything else, and the pair I would start with is the Classic Short Wrist Touchscreen Deerskin Gloves at $120. That sounds like a strange first answer for a numbness problem until you understand the mechanism. Numb fingers on a bike are almost never a mystery: they are blood flow and nerve compression, caused by some combination of a glove that squeezes, a wrist bent at a bad angle, and a hand gripping the bar far harder than the job requires. A supple, correctly sized deerskin glove removes one of those three, and it is the cheapest one to remove.

The reason this question is harder than it looks is that riders treat numbness as a padding problem when it is usually a pressure problem. Adding a thick padded glove to a hand that is already being strangled by a tight cuff makes it worse, not better. So this list is ordered the way I would actually work the problem: fit first, then load spreading, then moisture, then the honest edge cases. And one thing to state plainly up front, because it comes up in every glove article we write: Legendary deerskin is unlined or lightly lined, unarmored, and carries no CE rating. It is comfort, wind management and abrasion resistance. It is not impact protection, and no glove here will change that.

How These Were Judged

For numbness specifically I ranked on how little the glove restricts circulation, how evenly it spreads pressure across the palm rather than concentrating it, and how well it handles sweat, since a damp hand grips harder without you noticing. Break in speed mattered as a tiebreaker. Leather that softens quickly stops fighting your hand sooner.

These ratings are editorial judgments from riding in the gear and inspecting how it is built. They are not measurements, we do not run lab testing of any kind, and a number out of 10 tells you nothing about crash outcomes. If you have numbness that persists after you get off the bike, that is a medical question and not a shopping question, and it is worth a doctor rather than a new pair of gloves. Prices verified August 2026.

1. Classic Short Wrist Touchscreen Deerskin Gloves, Best for Circulation

The Classic Short Wrist Touchscreen Deerskin Gloves win here for what they do not do. There is no gauntlet strap cinching your forearm, no stiff cuff pressing on the wrist, and deerskin gives across the hand as it warms up instead of holding a fixed shape. That combination leaves your circulation alone, which is exactly what a numb handed rider needs. The touchscreen fingertips are a genuine bonus, because every time you strip a glove off at a stop and wrestle it back on you are irritating a hand that is already unhappy. Size them honestly. A glove you have to force on is the problem, not the solution.

• Price: $120

• Score: 9.0 out of 10

• Best for: riders whose fingers tingle within the first hour

2. Haymakers Super Welted Deerskin Gloves, Best for Spreading Load

If your numbness is concentrated in the little finger and ring finger, the pressure is landing on the heel of your hand where the ulnar nerve passes, and more material across that area genuinely helps. The Haymakers Super Welted Deerskin Gloves at $125 use fat welted seams and a fuller body of leather, which spreads the contact patch instead of letting the grip dig into one line. They are a heavier glove than the first pick and they take longer to break in, so they are the right answer only if you have already ruled out a glove that is simply too small. Two riders with the same symptom often need opposite fixes here.

• Price: $125

• Score: 8.6 out of 10

• Best for: numbness in the outer two fingers, riders who ride with weight on their hands

3. Gators Skin Glove Liners, Best for Sweat and Sizing

A wet palm slips, a slipping hand grips harder, and a hard grip is what puts your fingers to sleep. Gators Skin Glove Liners at $25 sit between your skin and the leather and take the moisture out of that loop. They are also the cheapest way to make a glove that is fractionally too large work properly, which matters because sizing up is usually the right move for a numb handed rider and a slightly loose glove can otherwise shift under your fingers. Twenty five dollars is not much to spend on a hypothesis, and this is the item on the list most people underestimate.

• Price: $25

• Score: 8.3 out of 10

• Best for: sweaty hands, riders who need to size up without losing fit

4. Fingerless Deerskin Gloves, Best for Short Warm Rides

I am including the Fingerless Deerskin Gloves at $72.99 with a caveat attached, because riders genuinely do report less finger numbness in them and the reason is simple: there is nothing wrapped around the fingers to constrict them, and heat escapes instead of building up. On a hot afternoon around town that is a real comfort win at the lowest price in this roundup. The caveat is equally real. Fingerless leather leaves your fingers with no coverage at all, so it trades protection for airflow, and it is the wrong tool for a full day at highway speed. Know which trade you are making.

• Price: $72.99

• Score: 7.8 out of 10

• Best for: hot weather, short rides, riders who cannot tolerate anything on their fingers

5. Rev'It Ergonomic Touring Gloves, Best Engineered Option

We do not sell Rev'It and there is no link here, but on nerve compression they build something we do not. Their touring gloves use pre curved fingers, anatomical palm shaping and targeted padding placed to keep pressure off the nerve paths, and that engineering is a more direct answer than choosing a nicer piece of leather. They also carry CE-rated impact protection, which nothing in our catalog does. The costs are the usual ones. Technical gloves cost more, they run warmer because of the membranes and layers, and they never develop the personal fit that deerskin does after a season. If your numbness is persistent and severe, shop that category honestly.

• Price: varies by model, not something we stock

• Score: 8.7 out of 10 for ergonomics and certified protection

• Best for: chronic numbness, riders who want anatomical shaping and CE armor

A Checklist for Hands That Go Dead

Work through these in order before you spend anything. The first four are free.

• Unclench. Ride with the lightest grip that keeps you in control. Most riders hold the bar like it is trying to escape.

• Straighten the wrist. If your wrist is cocked upward over the grip, you are compressing the carpal tunnel for hours. Roll the bars or the levers until your forearm and hand make a straight line.

• Take weight off your hands. Numbness that starts in the thumb and index side often means you are leaning on the bars instead of holding yourself up with your core.

• Move every twenty minutes. Shake one hand out, flex the fingers, change your grip position. This alone fixes a surprising number of riders.

• Check the glove for constriction. Any strap, cuff or seam that leaves a mark on your skin is a suspect. Compare your measurement against the glove size chart rather than guessing.

• Then, and only then, change the glove. Fit first, cushioning second.

• See a doctor if the numbness lasts after you park. Persistent symptoms are a nerve issue, not a gear issue, and no glove is a treatment.

Common Questions

How do I prevent hand numbness on long motorcycle rides?

Prevent hand numbness by loosening your grip, straightening your wrist angle, and wearing a glove that does not constrict your hand. Those three changes fix the majority of riders, and two of them are free. If symptoms remain after that, add material across the palm with a welted glove or move to an ergonomically shaped technical glove, and see a doctor if the numbness outlasts the ride.

Are my gloves too tight if my fingers go numb?

Very often, yes. A motorcycle glove should be snug with no loose fingertip material, but it should never leave pressure marks at the wrist or make your fingertips pale when you make a fist. Deerskin stretches a little across the palm as it breaks in, but it does not gain length, so a glove that is short in the fingers today will still be short in a year.

Do fingerless gloves help with numbness?

Fingerless gloves relieve the constriction and heat that contribute to numb fingers, which is why some riders swear by them in summer. The tradeoff is that your fingers have no covering at all, so you are choosing airflow over abrasion resistance. They make sense for short warm rides and much less sense for a long highway day.

What I Would Do First

Start free. Loosen the grip, roll the wrist flat, take weight off your hands, and shake out at every fuel stop for two rides. If the numbness improves, you have found it. If it does not, buy the Classic Short Wrist Touchscreen Deerskin Gloves at $120 in your true measured size and add the $25 liners, which together cost less than one technical glove and address fit and moisture at the same time.

The runner up is the Haymakers Super Welted pair at $125 for riders whose problem is pressure concentration rather than constriction, particularly if the tingling is in the outer fingers. Whatever you land on, keep the expectations honest. Deerskin is comfort, wind and abrasion, not armor. If you want to see the range of cuffs and constructions in one place, the USA made glove collection has all of it.