ONE-YEAR REVIEW
Held Phantom II £300
I’VE BEEN USING these gloves for nearly four years now, rather than one. And though the colour may have faded in places and they could do with a clean, their performance is pretty much as good now as it was when I first pulled them on.
It’s important to note, though, that these are not straight off-the-peg Phantom IIS (which cost £201.99). These were custom-fitted to my large hands — a process that can add 50% of the price of the glove and allows the spec to be refined, from colour(s) of leather to what type of protectors are used.
My gloves are kangaroo leather with a Kevlar lining inside on the back of the hand. Standard Phantom IIS use stingray inset panels, but I specified Superfabric on the cuff, fingers and on the edge-ofthe-hand/scaphoid pad. There’s a titanium shell on the large, plastic armour, which is comfortably padded on the inside and includes small vents on the top. The back of the hands and inside the fingers are lightly perforated but otherwise the leather is solid. There are cuff adjusters and wrist straps for a secure fit.
They fit better than any other glove I’ve ever used, which shouldn’t be a surprise. But not a bit better: miles better. Most 3XL gloves are a bit too small for me, though I have found a couple of 4XLS that fitted on the fingers but were too baggy everywhere else. None of that here: every dimension fits my hands — especially impressive given that left and right are different, thanks to a lifetime of riding and crashing bikes.
More to the point, they’ve stood up to four years’ hard use and abuse. I have cleaned them once (should do it more often). I literally just put them on and washed my hands in non-bio washing powder, rinsed them, let them air-dry and then gave them some leather food (inside and out). They came up brilliantly.
The metal loops the wrist straps pass through have corroded slightly, but that’s not a problem. The hook-side of the Velcro on the cuff flaps is pretty bald now, which is a pain as the flaps can, well, flap if I don’t wear the gloves under jacket sleeves — but I know a leather tailor who can put new Velcro on.
The Phantoms make every ride more pleasant than it is in other gloves. The feel is superb and comfort is off the charts — and they’re genuinely, reassuringly tough and protective. With a clean and that Velcro fixed, they’ll go on for many more years.