Beggars Would Ride
Back. Handed.
Back. Handed.
“I hear it’s a bit of a maze back in there – trails everywhere. Do we need a map of some kind?”
“Pfffft… Dude. I’ve been riding there for years. I know the trails like the back of my hand.”
“Oh, so, we DO need a map then.”
“What do you mean? I just told you; I Know The Trails There Like The Back Of My Hand.”
“Yeah, okay. Which hand? Right or Left? Do you know them both the same? Could you pick one or both of them out of a lineup of seven other similarly proportioned hands? What if one your hands was wearing a glove? Would you be able to even recognize it then? How well do you really know the back of your hand? I mean, do you spend a lot of time looking at the backs of your hands? I don’t. I don’t think I could tell you what the back of my hand looks like, aside from that one finger with the scar on it and the fact that I bite my nails. And 30% of people bite their nails. It’s not like I’m unique in that regard. So, when you say you know the trails like the back of your hand, I feel like I need some kind of clarification here, because I fucking hate getting lost. How well do you know the back of your hands, really?”
“Man, this is why nobody likes to ride with you.”
“Just like I thought. We need a map.”
I didn’t really have this conversation. But it was there, playing out in my head a few years ago in a hot as blazes dirt parking lot somewhere in Western Colorado, while a guy who I had previously never met was reassuring a group of us about his local knowledge. And he said that bit about the back of his hand. And I imagined the rest, because I was fresh off a visit to a doctor who told me that I was an idiot for not taking better care of my hands.
I'm a hand model, mama. A finger jockey. We think differently than the face and body boys...
I spent the better part of three decades staring right through the backs of my bare hands as I rode. It’s not a good habit. Ideally, one should be looking up and ahead, already having sectioned up the ground, committed to a line, so by the time one finds oneself actually rolling over said ground, the line, the obstacle, it isn’t something to be looked at. Look up, look ahead. Body follows head, head follows eyes. But, spend enough time grinding out miles, and sooner or later you face the ugly truth that a whole lot of that mile grinding takes place with eyes looking right down through the front axle, good habits be damned.
So, yeah, I looked down at my hands a whole lot for a few decades. And, until about three or four years ago, those hands were always bare. Maybe it was a Bart Brentjens thing. Maybe it was a growing up in New Zealand thing. But I never really liked gloves. I tried to rationalize my glovelessness to more safety minded people; going barehanded gave me more reason to ride carefully and avoid crashing because my hands were going to be useless when it comes pavement slapping time, gloves are kind of flimsy anyway and in a REAL crash won’t do much good, and eventually all gloves smell pretty damn nasty. But really, I just didn’t like the way gloves felt. Even though a bare handlebar grip can be a pretty icky place to rest your hand - what with all the sweat, dirt, gel residue, sunscreen runoff, stray vegetation and whatever else a handlebar may get dipped into – I preferred the feel of handlebar grips in my bare hands to the sensation when that tactile connection was interrupted with gloves.
I looked down at my hands without really registering them, but looked through those two bare hands as they wrapped around the bars of a hundred different bikes. Always the same hands. Same hands in deserts and rain forests and high alpine and sheep scented pastures. Rain, mud, dust, sun. Ahh yeah, sun. So much sun.
And for all those years staring at my hands, thinking the kind of unraveling thoughts that seem to come bubbling up most freely when calories are being mulched into sweat and motion, I couldn’t reliably be called upon to identify my hands should the need arise. “Mister Ferrentino, this is the County Sheriff’s office. Do you know where your hands were at 11:23p.m last night? No? Would you be willing to come down to the station and identify them for us?” Cue the lineup from the movie The Usual Suspects. Could my hands really be Keyser Söze? How could I NOT have seen that? I mean, I thought I knew them, you know, like the back of my hand…
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist..." (judging by Gabriel Byrne's expression and body language here, he's getting pretty damn sick of hand puns)
Which, it turns out, I didn’t really know all that well. Looking down at my hands, they always seemed so small, so full of little bones. But when I see pictures of my hands there’s a perspective shift that for some reason makes them look differently proportioned. More robust, but also unfamiliar. Thus the whole wondering about how many of us really know the backs of our hands.
But then there was a trip to the dermatologist, right around the time I had that imaginary conversation with myself in a Western Colorado dirt parking lot, and finding out that 30 years of riding gloveless had been maybe not such a good idea. This was that doctor visit I alluded to a few paragraphs back, where I had my first date with a can of nitrogen. Ah well, I winced, as a dozen small “irregularities” were burned off one by one, at least this freezing kind of burn doesn’t smell like roasting skin or hair. This would become an annual ritual. That was the end of not really knowing the backs of my hands.
I now pay a lot of attention to them. I scan for freckles turning rogue. I suspiciously eyeball every pale spot, every nick, every scrape, every scar, take note of their placement, shape, size. I’m watching you, you treacherous little would-be assassins, I say, as I gently massage Gold Bond Age Defense cream into hands that I now feel are possibly waging some subversive war of retribution against me. Thirty-year-ago me sneers in contempt. Hand cream? You sad old loser. What’s next, yoga?
Thirty-year-ago me was an arrogant halfwit. He had absolutely no concept of mortality, no understanding that this ride is without a doubt going to end, and his framework for parsing things like time and nuance was woefully underdeveloped. He did not realize that there might be a long decline, where every semblance of our once boundlessly elastic youth would erode away, where our hair would change color or fall out, where our skin would become thin and papery, where our skeletons would stiffen in so many strange and different ways and at the same time become more fragile, where untold indignities and infirmities would visit themselves upon us with absolute inevitability. No way of understanding this wouldn’t be a “maybe” proposition; that this would, with dead certainty, happen to us and everyone we know if we stick around long enough.
Suck it, thirty-year-ago me. I wear gloves now. Every damn ride. Super thin gloves. No padding at all. They offer nothing in the way of protection in the case of a crash, but they stop the sun from trying to turn my hands into the agents of my demise. Sneer all you want, thirty-year-ago me. The clock is ticking, boy, and you know nothing. These gloves, these long sleeve shirts? They are a blessing; a benediction. Thanks to them, the ride goes on. This is no price to pay at all. Just a lesson learned late. There are years to go. Years. Decades, if I get lucky. How many? Who knows? Tick-tock, chop-chop, get after it.
Pro tip, thirty-year-ago me: Wear gloves. Get into yoga, now.
It's not the easiest of alliances, the one between my hands and gloves, but we are trying to make it work.
Comments
Tim (aka DigitBikes/DirtBaggies)
1 year, 3 months ago
... gotta preserve the furry knuckle and grimy handshake
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Cam McRae
1 year, 3 months ago
Gold!
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Shinook
1 year, 3 months ago
I'm a ginger and both my parents had melanoma, my dermatologist told me flat out it's "when, not if" I get something that needs surgical removal and is cancerous. Everyone over a certain age should be seeing one regularly, but I have to go super regular. It doesn't help that I ride mountain bikes, sail boats, and do a bunch of other things that either involve exposure to sunlight or massive amounts of hot clothing.
All that said, while I know your point was about sun damage, I think the cycling industry needs to do more to deal with overuse hand use injuries. I'm likely facing one of several surgeries to my arm and hands due to nerve damage that causes me unbearable pain when I ride. I think a lot of this could have been avoided with proper ergonomics and improvement in areas like grips and bar geometry/design. I've seen some cool possibilities over the years, but they either never make it to market or have other drawbacks. Everyone I know who rides at some point complaints about hand pain while riding or has their hands seize up, we're beating them to death on the bars and it really feels like there is little to no innovation in helping solve that problem.
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Pete Roggeman
1 year, 3 months ago
What have you tried to address the hand injuries? Would be curious to know if anything has helped, such as Revved grips, which we've heard from others can be very helpful.
I will say I haven't encountered many issues myself, or with others I ride with. Not sure where you live, but are the trails hard-packed and full of stutter bumps? I'm betting the soft dirt we have here in abundance is a lot kinder to hands and joints.
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Cr4w
1 year, 3 months ago
I used to get a lot of grip-related issues. First, I got some bigger better grips. I have big hands and pinching these grips that seem designed to be as minimal as possible didn't help. I tried Sensus Meaty Paws but ended up on SQ Lab 711 which are definitely my favourite grip. Also, 12' backsweep bars and a lot of time spent analyzing my position on the bike.
Gear aside, I was getting terrible forearm tension, which is a logical byproduct of riding. I found it really difficult to properly mobilize the forearms until I got something like this. It looks obscene sitting on my living room table but I haven't found anything else as good at curing that tension. When the forearm is happy the wrist is happy and the hand too, at least for me.
If you want to keep riding you need to take care of this stuff before it takes care of you.
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Lynx .
1 year, 3 months ago
+ a million what C4w said about bigger sweep bars. I got a SQ Lab x30 16 degree sweep bar about 6 years ago and it makes the biggest difference in alleviating wrist pain, run it on my rigid Kona Unit, so much so that now I've really started back riding the Phantom the bar is the 12 degree Salsa I tried before I got the SQ Lab 16 bar, even though it was too narrow, I colyfoxed in some extensions to move it from 460-480 wide :-D
Oh and Cr4w, that "thing" looks killer, literally and exactly what I need now, suffering some serious forearm pump and like you, once I can get them to relax, the wrists release and move a whole lot better.
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Shinook
1 year, 3 months ago
Unfortunately these made my issues worse. I tried and it was so bad I had to take them off after 2 rides. I think these may help some with certain issues but they didn't for me, likely because the nerve is entrapped and they moved my elbow into a position that made it worse. I'm hopefully getting that resolved soon and I may revisit them after I do.
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Shinook
1 year, 3 months ago
I've tried RevGrips several times and I have kinda mixed feelings on them. It's difficult for me to come to a conclusion on how much they help. There are certainly grips that make a difference and some that make it worse. I feel my issue is more compression related, so they help some where ergonomic grips like ergons make it worse because of the hard compound the grip is made of. I can say RevGrips don't aggravate anything worse and they feel nice and may help some issues, but it isn't a resolution for me. I've also had good luck with DreadLock grips of all things.
As for what I've tried...that's a dissertation. In short: doctors, PT, bike fits, MANY grips, many bars, many forks, many bikes, etc. I could go on for a while. Ultimately I think the problem could be mitigated to the point I don't need medical intervention, but it's a tap dance and our terrain is really hard/rough (I live in western North Carolina). General strength training and physical therapy helps a lot but doesn't eliminate it entirely. I think reduction in vibration/impact on my hand could and does help, but it's reaching a point where I'll probably need release surgery, I think the nerve in my elbow is entrapped and that's likely aggravating it, so my issue is a little more isolated, but I do think hand care is something more people need to think about. I met a teenager the other day at a bike park whose hand completely seized up from riding park so long, I feel we should be addressing this more, because this shouldn't be happening, yet it seems a regular discussion point.
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Tjaard Breeuwer
1 year, 3 months ago
I’d say, NSMB.com is probably the best place on the Internet I have found for discussions and reviews of various bike fit/body health related items and issues.
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Shinook
1 year, 3 months ago
@Tjaard - Agree completely. Feels like these types of subjects are glossed over or ignored in other publications, it's one of the many reasons I have been coming back here for so long.
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Mike Ferrentino
1 year, 3 months ago
Many years ago, I was writing for a a magazine that was very much afraid of being seen as anything but young and cutting edge. A reader wrote in and asked why I kept writing about aches and pains and all the basic stuff that happens to regular people, and why wasn't I out there trying to push the envelope. I think my response was something along the lines of "You want big air, son? Pull my finger"...
This site is a gem. I came here because I really like Cam and Pete and because I have always admired the ability of the people who write for nsmb.com to speak their truth - whatever that truth may be. There's also a resonance in that most of us here, writers and readers alike, are openly experiencing the aging process. We also have a pretty broad sample group of people who went as big or as hard as we could in the earlier years, and we are all to some degree experiencing the consequences of those younger years. To coin a phrase, we fucked around. Now we are finding out.
In spite of our cultural obsession with youth, there is a massive swath of mountain biking's active population that is getting older and dealing with all the shit that goes along with that. I personally believe this is normal, and this is the sort of stuff that should be talked about, understood, come to terms with. It matters. It isn't an admission of defeat, or self victimization. This is life. And life involves dialog and understanding. So, until Pete and Cam tell me to stop, I'll keep writing about melanoma and sore hips.
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Speeder1
1 year, 3 months ago
Yea. Yoga, dude. It works. And don't forget that derm appt (RIP Rob Sears.) Just had my annual scrape and freeze bout yesterday. Oh and don't forget the cold plunges, deep breathing, slow breathing, Tibetin Rites, and all the rest! Gotta keep ridin! Cheers!
Any updates on the SB bikes being tested?
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Adrian Bostock
1 year, 3 months ago
A couple months ago I had a similar date with a can of nitrogen for bump which appeared on a birthmark on my temple. The doc asked the basic questions, how much time to you spend out side, Do use sun screen. - A fair amount, and never, were the answers. - That’s what I thought, this is going to hurt, you should use sunscreen.
I still don’t use sunscreen. but I bought a wide brimmed hat for the canoe.
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Lynx .
1 year, 3 months ago
Hahahahaha. Oh the sun burns I took in my youth, unreal ones where you would have mistaken me for a strawberry. Luckily I'm not "fair skinned" like you Mike, but we all still have to be careful of that big ball in the sky and the havoc it will wreak. I always used to ride with gloves, fingerless ones to help keep cool, then a few years ago once I started riding a bit harder, I accidentally got a pair of full finger and never went back, but I also started riding without gloves on smother/tamer trails or sections of a ride, because of the heat and this has me thinking a bit, but in saying that, I also almost always remember to put sunscreen on the backs of my hands.
As to we all have to get old and cratchety, no we don't if our younger selves would just start doing yoga/stretching and eating right and we continue that as we age, but most don't, most don't take care of themselves properly, even though some do try, but we're always lacking in some department of nutrition or stretching/exercise - I'd give anything for my hip flexors to not feel like they've ben wound tighter than the string on a frame saw every morning.
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TristanC
1 year, 3 months ago
For tight tendons/muscles, I use two things that work wonders: a massage gun and a Graston tool (basically a big butter knife that you drag across tight tendons to break up scar tissue). I found out about them after an injury that lead to an imbalance injury and a couple visits to the PT that left my thighs one huge bruise. Now, I use them religiously and it makes a big difference to the general creakiness of my legs.
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JT
1 year, 3 months ago
A Graston going over an IT band is a new lesson in the phrase Hurts so good.
Emphasis on the Hurts part.
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TristanC
1 year, 3 months ago
Can confirm, when the PT did my IT band right next to the knee joint, the pain was exquisite, and the bruising was horrifying.
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Lynx .
1 year, 3 months ago
I remember when my IT band was NOT good and had my first massage, I think I levitated off the massage table when the lady went at it, you could easily hear all the scar tissue popping from a good distance away. Thankfully now it's pretty good, but probably need to add it in to my places to do/check regularly along with the hip flexors and gluts and hamstrings.
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Lynx .
1 year, 3 months ago
Massage gun would be nice, but $$ and not something you can just easily purchase here, so not happening anytime soon, but I can make a "graston tool", actually already have a nice 3/8"x 1.5"x14" piece of purple heart with rounded corners and I have used it in the past, but mainly on my shins/calf muscles when they're really bad - have to remember to do this stuff, even when it doesn't feel "bad".
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TristanC
1 year, 3 months ago
I do shins/calves, both the inside and outside of my thighs just above the knee, and my hips every day right after I get out of the shower. Makes a huge difference. And yeah, you don't need fancy tools - the massage gun is cool, but a foam roller or a tennis ball does the same thing for a fraction of the price. And the Graston bar is a smoothed out rectangular slab of whatever. Min/max your personal care!
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JT
1 year, 3 months ago
Pretty much always wore gloves for one reason only: If I begin to get active my body responds by opening the pore sprinklers to flood. Been that way since I was a kid but at least as a kid living in the desert it dried off relatively quickly, rather than lingering for hours at a pop here in the arboreal forests of the northern Midwest. Also the reason why I am pretty much a wool for everything guy. It may get soaked, but at least it won't funk up as much/bad. To yoga, welp, I met my wife by becoming a rather heavy gym/class rat. I think even 30yr ago me would be stoked, if not totally surprised that someone actually said yes to my sweaty ass. A couple times. And even more surprised that I make enough to afford a gym membership.
Fav gloves so far are Chromag Terro. Thin merino top, a thin synthetic leather palm that feels verrrrry Pittard's like. A bit snug on initial install but disappear in the background once you start doing things. Excellent bar feel and didn't sop up like sponges after the 86deg day we had a couple weeks ago. Sliding to home test has not been initiated so I can't comment on that.
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Skooks
1 year, 3 months ago
I love those Chromag merino gloves for ski touring. I can leave them on all day and they are super comfortable.
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BadNudes
1 year, 3 months ago
The Terros might be my favourite full finger as well. I've had a few pairs. Easily the most comfy full fingers I've used, especially during the spring and fall when temps are anywhere from 5-25*C. I think they have an issue though, on every set I've used the touch-screen thread in the index finger starts falling out after the first ride, the 'merino' (only about 20% real merino IIRC) fabric starts pilling quickly, and you need to stay away from velcro, burrs and thorns as they will get chewed up quick. They also visibly wet out with sweat which just looks a little gross. Functionally they last pretty good, the palms in particular seem excellent, but they start showing their age quick compared to most other mtb gloves.
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Andy Eunson
1 year, 3 months ago
I’ve always worn gloves. I was taught as a young road rider that gloves were for grip, crash protection and a little padding from the bars. And ever since that crash where I took off the top of one finger including the finger nail, from the back they have been full finger affairs. Would full finger gloves have helped save that finger? Don’t know but it wouldn’t have made it worse.
I think I was in my forties when I first had N treatments. About 15 years ago I went to a dermatologist for these little red spots all over my forearms. She said it was actinic keratosis. I think she said one in a hundred (thousand?) of these spots could become cancerous and I had hundreds of spots. Too many to dunk me in nitrogen. Also had them on my scalp and face. Efudex cream was prescribed. Pretty brutal. It takes a couple weeks for the full effect and then it’s like rubbing cream on the worst sunburn you ever had. Lumps of skin come off when you peel off the sun blocking arm warmers. My eyeglasses sat on my puffy cheeks my face was so swollen. But I looked younger when it was all said and done. But I have to re-do the Efudex thing every 5 or 6 years to some parts of my body.
Stay out of the sun. Wear sun screen. Big hats are good. Wear sleeves. Long sleeves. That tank top makes you look like a douche anyway. You too ladies. You don’t get to replace that skin like you can a knee joint. The sun will age you fast. Every ski patroller I know that is in their 60s has a face like an old potato.
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ShawMac
1 year, 3 months ago
I always wear gloves for most activities, I have Trump style tiny hands. But for whatever reason, I destroy them just from wearing. This includes 100% leather sailing gloves. The biggest factor for me is finding kevlar stitching to hold them together (maybe my hand sweat is a powerful thread dissolver). What frustrates me is glove brands don't commonly publish what the stitching is. My longest lasting MTB gloves were a cheap pair of Sombrio from MEC that had Kevlar stitching. Expensive Fox, or even Mechanix all come apart after a couple months.
I tend to wear a lot more covering outside and use sunscreen. But that shit is expensive, especially if you use it in the recommended amounts! So putting on a shirt is an easy way to reduce exposure. It helps now that I am fat, hairy, and no muscles to show off. Farmer tan? I don't care. I work in an office.
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Pete Roggeman
1 year, 3 months ago
Interesting about the stitching. When you wash them, do you hang dry? I wouldn't think the dryer would be causing that issue but it definitely doesn't help with longevity. If the blowouts are at the fingertips, they could be too small.
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ShawMac
1 year, 3 months ago
It's always the sides of the fingers rather than the ends. I probably do not wash them enough tbh and that could be a contributing factor.
I think it is almost impossible for me to find gloves too small unless they are for a 5 year old lol
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BadNudes
1 year, 3 months ago
I've got short fat fingers and always used to squeeze into a medium as that fit the length best. When I destroy gloves it's either a trashed palm from a crash, or busted seams between the fingers from wear. I Recently started wearing larges and at first hated the extra bit at the end of the fingers but learned to cope just fine, and they seem to last longer and are more comfy. Might be worth trying to size up?
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Cee Cee
1 year, 3 months ago
Many teens could attest that the front of the hand is a true repository of knowledge, radiating ubiquitously
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Ryan Walters
1 year, 3 months ago
Some cool guy just reviewed some gloves for people like you, Mike:
https://nsmb.com/articles/akta-apparel-part-2/
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fartymarty
1 year, 3 months ago
Mike - Another great musing - I always have Hunter in the back of my mind tho “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”
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Mike Ferrentino
1 year, 3 months ago
Thirty-year-ago me was a big HST fan, and I still admire so much of his writing. But the passage of time has left me with much less of an admiration for the man and his legend. To be fair, he went out with a literal bang once he realized he was getting old and things were falling apart physically; stayed true to his credo. I feel like he couldn't face the rest of his life. "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Not sure if I consider suicide a pro move, but then not everyone considers the aging process as "the going getting weird." I do. Ah well, we all get to frame that conversation for ourselves, in our own way.
Time is a motherfucker. It erodes all of us, and we all have to deal with the ravages it deals out as well as the delayed consequences of our youthful indiscretions. But that skidding in broadside in a cloud of smoke analogy, that works for people in their 20s. When I meet people in their 50s who still say that, I tend to give them plenty of room. And I don't seem to meet people who say that once they've become grandparents or watched a few friends die.
Me? I've got a few burnouts left, but I'll be plenty happy sitting in a rocking chair and yelling at kids to get off my lawn once they take my license away...
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fartymarty
1 year, 3 months ago
I'm not quite yet 50 (a year and a month to go) so you may have given me the nudge to change my thinking on the quote. Suicide is a complete sellout on HSTs behalf IMO.
But on the other hand I don't want to give up on life and play golf (I'm on Andrew Majors team re golf).
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Mike Ferrentino
1 year, 3 months ago
"Golf has too much walking to be a good game, and just enough game to spoil a good walk..."
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Pete Roggeman
1 year, 3 months ago
You two have just earned more crossover golf mentions in upcoming articles.
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fartymarty
1 year, 3 months ago
The quote I heard was "golf is a waste of a good walk". Anyways I'm not going there or not at least I'm too broken to ride and even then lawn bowls seems more exciting.
Pete - If I mention golf in an Andrew Major article i reckon he's going to get on a plane and fly to the UK, hunt me down and ounch me in the nose ;)
Edit - punch
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Velocipedestrian
1 year, 3 months ago
>ounch me in the nose ;)
The sound you make when ounched.
Hawkinsdad
1 year, 3 months ago
Thanks again for your astute musings, Mike. It takes courage, and a whole boatload of irascibility, to press forward at my decrepit age of 62, with a big work caseload and regularly doing trail building and maintenance days, accompanied by untreated ADHD and the effects of age and multiple dirt bike, skiing, mountain bike, climbing, soccer, and vehicular injuries. I will continue to drive like my Tacoma is stolen, slog my way to the top, flail downhill giggling, and keep my fragile freckled Irish skin covered as much as possible until the next biopsy.
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mikesee
1 year, 3 months ago
I'm too busy out faffing about on rivers and in the woods to keep a lawn. But I still yell at the disrespectful little sonsabitches to stay off. Might start shooting paintballs at 'em with the slingshot I use to keep the squirrels off the finch feeders...
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Bli33ard
1 year, 3 months ago
Yeah, I tried it backhanded, it feels like somebody else...
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Lynx .
1 year, 3 months ago
It's just passed 9:30am here and here's a screen shot of the temp already, luckily according to them the UV is only at 7/10, but that'll soon be 11/10 in about 1.5 hours. This is why I leave home before 5am to go out riding on the weekends, especially if I want to get in a decent length ride - this past Sunday was out for 5 hours, pedaled 3:45 of that, did 29.5 miles and 3200ft of climbing, was baked by the time I got home just after 10am, I couldn't find my sunscreen to take with me, luckily did have my Buff bandana to keep the sun off the head and did my best to stick to a quite covered/shaded trail back, but that meant a harder and longer time back.
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Velocipedestrian
1 year, 3 months ago
27° overnight! How can you sleep?
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Lynx .
1 year, 3 months ago
To be fankly honest it's hard AF, fan's just blowing the warm air about and it doesn't really start feeling cooler until after about 1am once a lot of the heat has disipated out of the ground from the day and unlike most hotels, most, prob 90% of locals don't have AC, myself included.
"Velocipedestrian - 27° overnight! How can you sleep?"
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XXX_er
1 year, 3 months ago
On the trail padz & gloves always, instead of mtn bike gloves I use a small diameter grip and a work glove but not just any glove, I have to try a doz pair to get the right feel. I found some watsons at the chainsaw store, padded areas on the palm with big chunks of rubber on the knuckles that prevent injury & feel right on the grip and there is no leatehr in the glove so they don't get stinky
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