Ergon GDH grips – Slim, Regular and Fat
Ergon is a “touch point” brand; the German company’s entire existential focus has been on grips and saddles, and it has evolved a wide array of those items to meet the varying physical needs of differently shaped humans who ride bikes in vastly different ways. When speaking of grips, for many of us the name “Ergon” invokes memories of the radically shaped GP series grips that were the foundational statement for the brand – weird looking but beloved among the long distance touring set. That was a long time ago, though, and Ergon have evolved on through the rounder but still uniquely proportioned GA series into the GE enduro series and into the gravity market with the new-ish GD series and now the 45 USD/ 65 CAD GDH series grips.
It seems a bit gratuitous to burn a pile of words on a single pair of grips, but in this case, we’re taking a look at THREE pairs of them. The GDH is available in three diameters: the 30mm GDH Slim, 32mm GDH, and 34mm GDH Fat. All three GDH thicknesses feature the same right/left specific design with a soft padded zone on top of the grip for damping and palm comfort, a ridged zone on the bottom for finger grip, slight profiling at the inner and outer ends to remind riders where their hands should be, and are made from a compound that Ergon calls “ultra-soft GravityControl Rubber”. All three are lock-on grips, clamped on the inboard side with a 2.5mm hex bolt. The GDH Fat comes in 5 colors, the GDH (regular?) is available in seven different hues, and apparently skinny grip lovers have no flair because they only get a choice between black and “slay gray”.
The GDH grip, in the words of Ergon, is “purpose-built for downhill chaos, blending elite-level ergonomics with race-day control. Developed alongside downhill royalty including Vali Höll, Troy Brosnan, and Fabien Barel, every millimeter of the GDH is tuned for speed, precision, and reduced hand fatigue when the trail turns violent.” I am going to state emphatically here that I have not engaged in any downhill chaos, have only ridden these grips on trails that verge on potentially menacing, and cannot speak to how elite-level ergonomics impact race-day control. That said, I am mightily impressed with them. These are good grips. Much more “basic round” with some well-thought-out touches than many of the other Ergon models, the GDH grips offer solid connection to the bars, whether gloved or barehanded AND are available in different diameters to suit hand size or rider feel preference. They work just fine when not racing downhill.
Squishy on the top, ridged to follow fingers on the bottom, file pattern in between, with a subtle flange on the locking end and a bump on the outside edge. They may look a lot more conventionally cylindrical than many Ergon grips, but these are still very much Ergon grips. There’s a top side and a bottom side, and some clearly spelled out directions on how to best orient them so up is up and down is down.
I requested one pair of each size from Ergon, so I could interrogate my own preconceptions about optimal grip diameter. My own preconceptions were that I would like the GDH Slim the most, and would probably not get along well with the GDH Fat. This is based on the fact that I have generally good memories of 30mm diameter ODI Ruffians, and generally not so good memories of 33mm Oury V2 grips. My hands are pretty average, I wear size large gloves but most of that is because my palms are broad. Some large gloves are a little bit long in the finger, but I still need to wear them because mediums often feel too tight across the width of my hand.
Speaking of gloves, this is all relatively new to me. I spent my entire cycling life riding barehanded until about five or six years ago, when it became evident that the previous several decades hadn’t done my hands any favors in terms of squamous cell carcinomas. Rather than give my dermatologist any more excuses to break out the liquid nitrogen, I started wearing gloves. I do not like wearing gloves. But I like having baby-cancers burned off the backs of my hands every few months even less than I like wearing gloves, so… Gloves it is. Still, in the interests of this whole grip size preference deal, I rode all three sets of grips both with gloves and barehanded.
Here’s what I found:
GDH Slim
I expected to like this one the most, but it turned out to be the least suited to my riding. With or without gloves, I would start to notice a faint cramp in my left hand after about 30 minutes of rocky up and down chunk. Not long after that, the ulnar nerve on my right arm would start telling me things weren’t awesome. My right ulnar nerve does this a lot of the time, regardless of grip brand, but it seemed to come on sooner with the Slims than the other two diameters. It didn’t seem to make much difference whether I was wearing gloves or not – gloves in this case being Tasco Ridgelines, with about .7mm thick palm material – the Slims telegraphed manual discomfort earlier than the others.
Bear in mind, this is me relating what I experienced, and in this case, I think I learned that my hands prefer grips that have a larger diameter than 30mm. This is the first time I have been able to evaluate grips back-to-back, where I was swapping grips out mid-ride and in some cases repeating the same sections, shuffling between all three grips. I would have sworn before this that I was a thin grip kind of guy.
GDH Fat
While the extra material lent a more cushy feeling underhand than the others, especially when referenced against the Slim, the Fat felt bigger than ideal for me. I didn’t experience any cramping or discomfort, but felt sometimes like I wasn’t as securely locked onto the bars. I felt less in control and less precise with my ability to choose lines with the bigger diameter grips. This sensation was pronounced enough that any comfort advantage I might have felt from the extra padding was negated by the “I ain’t big enough for this” feeling of not quite being dialed enough.
These were definitely the most padded of the three and were notably cushier than the two smaller diameters. Riders with bigger mitts will benefit not only from a diameter that jives with their preferred hand wrap dimensions, but also a more comfortable, buzz and vibration-eating grip.
GDH
So, I had this whole riff lined up about how when Goldilocks tasted the Mama bear’s porridge she found it “juuuust right”, and how me and Vali Holl like the same size grip because the smack-dab-in-the-middle proportions of the regular GDH are just so damn good in my hands that I feel like I am very comfortably welded to my handlebars, and how this happy medium size is “juuuust right.” But then I reread the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, and it turns out that Goldilocks was all about crowding the Baby bear’s action, not the Mama bear. So much for that metaphor. Aaaanyway, this grip is about perfect for me. There’s enough padding on the palm side to be comfortable in all kinds of jank, the finger ridges offer an admirably secure grip even through gloves and an insane level of connection when riding barehanded, and they just flat out do the job. Bonus points for the Vali Holl tribute smiley faces and lightning bolts anodized into the gold collars. I may never be able to unleash downhill chaos enough to do justice to these grips, but a guy can dream…
The flock at home is currently running ODI Vans (30mm), ODI Vanquish (32.7mm), and Lizard Skin Strata (32.25mm) grips. I would punt all of them for the medium GDH in a heartbeat. That said, daaaang, 45 bucks for a pair of grips? That’s getting up there, and seems to be about ten dollars more per set than most of the competition. These are good grips, available in a rainbow of colors, and you have the opportunity to find the diameter that suits you best, but all that goodness comes at a premium.
Is fat where it’s at? Or is getting thin the path to win? There’s a lot to be said for personal preference here, and I think grip preference is not tied solely to hand size, but also what a rider “feels”. Choice is good, and it’s worth experimenting if you can.
Finally, a note on what I suspect is 100% placebo effect: With the GDH Slims, I coulda sworn my bike felt quicker handling, sharper, more responsive. Likewise, with the Fats, my bike felt a little more stable, slower steering, and less responsive. I am chalking this up to perception bias more than anything tangible, and am pretty sure I would recalibrate around this in no time at all, and could easily adapt to riding any of these diameters. But, when hot swapping grips mid-ride, the sensation was noticeable each time, especially when going from the Slims straight across to the Fats. Like I said, probably placebo effect. But something to think about…