How do you minimise palm blisters (sounds dodgy)

[Reckless]

All you need to do is go to the wharehouse or a camping store and buy some cheap $5.00 thin polypropelene gloves that you wear inside your riding gloves. They are thin, stop blisters and last me for about 3 years before needing replacing. Forget using taping etc.
There are some kevlar gloves made for the same purpose (about $30.00 last pair I bought) but they only lasted about half the time that my $5.00 gloves have.

I'd go with this advice mate Danger knows all the tricks.

Secondly Panelbeaters hands should be way tough enough, you sure your relaxed enough, just let the bike do it, riding postition etc.
I'm the last person to give riding advice but just a thought??

[warewolf]

I used to get blisters quite badly when I was riding my DR-Z250 in AKL (woodhill etc) with cheap-ish alloy bars. Used to think it was just my soft hands from driving a keyboard all day, until I saw Chris Power going nuts with the tape... so it wasn't just me. Riding the KTM 200 is nowhere near as bad, to non-existant.

Except! one time I put new fork seals etc in, added 10mm of preload and set the clickers back to standard (much stiffer). Then went out and did a 3-hour cross-country in steep, bumpy, dry hard-pack conditions. Totally blistered up my hands big time. Admittedly lots of other people had problems with blisters that day. The next day I removed 5mm of preload, set the clickers back to where I had them give or take, and even with seriously blistered hands had a very comfortable 2-hour cross-country, albeit on different, gentler terrain, and not at full speed after being knackered the day before.

So the lesson was to not futz around with settings and take them to the track UNTESTED. And check your front end settings, they might be too harsh which could be the cause or a contributing factor to blisters.

[Starky307]

I've found many reasons for getting blisters. It can be a whole lot of different reasons from the type of grips being used to the sweep of bar and position they are set to.
If you are only getting them on your left hand it may be the fact that you have a death grip on the bars and need to relax while riding, the right hand will be fine as due to the throttle being able to soak up a lot of the vibrations etc that hand won't be so bad.
If your bars are rolled to far forward or back the sweep of the bar can load up the inside or outside of your palms causing them to blister.
At the end of the day I've found tapping my hands helps as i don't like the feel of dual gloves.
Try relaxing and getting you bike set up dialed in which will help with your riding in bigger ways than just blisters.

Thats my 2 cents worth.

[4stroke]

i noticed after the paparimu ride yesterday my hands were pretty sore , no blisters but it must have been close, i think it was all the high speed bumpy down hills that did it (had the front brake howling), the problem is my hands are like the rest of me, to big. its hard enuf to get cloves to fit without having to have palm savers aswell. might have to try dangers idea.

[FROSTY:Me]

Im not an experienced dirt rider but I do know that loose gloves don't help your cause

[takitimu]

i noticed after the paparimu ride yesterday my hands were pretty sore , no blisters but it must have been close, i think it was all the high speed bumpy down hills that did it (had the front brake howling), the problem is my hands are like the rest of me, to big. its hard enuf to get cloves to fit without having to have palm savers aswell. might have to try dangers idea.

From memory ADB recommend Danger's idea & I figure they know about blisters with the extreme long races they ride over there .

[camchain]

Doing plenty of weight training has a big side benefit of toughening up the skin on hands (even already tough panel beater hands).

Most here will already know this, but gripping the bike with your knees over the rough stuttery stuff, elbows up, loose grip with hands, and letting the bike 'rocking horse' around underneath you helps (saves a heap of energy too). I suspect having to really hang on to the bar on steep long up-hills is probably the big blister-maker, but leg grip can really help here as well.

[Finn]

Have you tried relaxing your grip?

[theblacksmith]

i noticed after the paparimu ride yesterday my hands were pretty sore , no blisters but it must have been close, i think it was all the high speed bumpy down hills that did it (had the front brake howling), the problem is my hands are like the rest of me, to big. its hard enuf to get cloves to fit without having to have palm savers aswell. might have to try dangers idea.

Good to hear that you and the bike are all go again 4stroke.

[flyingcr250]

think ill try dangers idea. probably good that its going to rain this weekend, give the old blisters time to heal a bit. thanks for the suggestions.

[B0000M]

think ill try dangers idea. probably good that its going to rain this weekend, give the old blisters time to heal a bit. thanks for the suggestions.

do you melt in the rain?

[flyingcr250]

do you melt in the rain?

na just sick of riding in the mud, i rode more this winter than i did last summer.

[Pierce]

it was only a matter of time ha ha ha. my mate sez its because im not over the bars as much as i should be

Probably grippin too hard too. im not the best rider on the track but find when i ride well and don't tire i don't get blisters so i'd say my form is better.

Also the more you ride the more your hands will callace up and hence and BOOOOOM said... "Harden up"

[camchain]

I think teava's spraying brake cleaner on hands solution was my favourite. A proper Hard Bastard number 8 wire idea.

[oldskool]

Mrs Madge recommends dipping them in Palmolive to soften the calluses. Cracked calluses are worse than watery baby blisters. Kill 2 birds with one stone and wash your bike at the same time!