how can I make wooden wheelbarrow handles more comfortable

[CompactTractorFan]

I would go with the tape...Or maybe some of that liquid tool handle rubber coating.

[MissouriSprayer]

I bought a Front end loader.

Sorry, just a smarty pants tonight....

[Egon]

A realistic Man!

[ultrarunner]

My dad stretched a length of old bicycle tube over the handles on his wheelbarrow.

[Gary Fowler]

RickB: great minds think alike. I was thinking the same thing, get someone else to use it. Wheelbarrow, shovels, garden hoes etc doesnt hurt me at all any more because I have someone with strong muscles using them. It is a lot less expensive to pay someone a couple hundred to work those than pay a doctor or chiropractor several hundred to relieve my back spasms not to mention the pain and suffering and just ask any judge & jury, pain and suffering carries a lot of worth.
If you must insist on wrapping your own hands around them get some good gloves with a thick palm pad on them. Keep sand and dirt off your hands when using a wheel barrow to avoid blisters and abraided skin. If you must handle the dirt AND use a wheelbarrow, keep some water and drying towels handy to wash your hands between handling dirt and handling the wheelbarrow handles. A clean dry handle is not slick and clean hands dont hurt you later from blistering up.
DONT OVERDO ANY OF THE WORK TILL YOU GET THOSE HANDS TOUGHENED UP. UNLESS THEY LOOK LIKE A DAY LABORER, TAKE IT EASY ON THEM AT FIRST.

[ncnurseryman]

Lots of good ideas, many thanks to all that responded. I think I'll try the bike tape, seems simple enough. I completely agree on the fel. I use it extensively at the nursery. This wheelbarrow is used for spreading mulch at customers yard where you can't get a tractor to. Usually I use the better ones with the foam handles, guess I was in a cheap mindset when I bought this one. Also usually I have someone to do the heavy work but they are all in tobacco now, oh well, keeps me young. I think.

[xtn]

Plenty of tape types that might be suitable. I think the earlier suggestion of bicycle tire tubes stretch over the wood sounds the most comfortable. Or... do they make electrical shrink-wrap big enough for this?

[GGB]

Check these out:

Simply Dump It, Pivoting Wheelbarrow Handles

I remembered seeing these several years ago, and looked like a sound concept.

[Dr_Zinj]

There are narrow places I can't get the tractor FEL into that a wheelbarrow works fine; just as there are jobs that a hand shovel is the only tool that will work as neither the back hoe, nor the FEL bucket can get into. Not many I grant you, or at least not large jobs.

Oh yeah, and swamps where a wheelbarrow on planks can get in where your tractor would vanish from sight.

[xtn]

Check these out:

Simply Dump It, Pivoting Wheelbarrow Handles

I remembered seeing these several years ago, and looked like a sound concept.

HA!

If you "never have to let go," why do the pictures show the hands oriented one way in the "roll it" position and reversed in the "dump it" position? He let go and turned his hands around!!!

xtn