For more than two decades, the RIDE Best Buy and Recommended triangles have stood for performance and value for money.
A RIDE award means that a product has been tested under real-world and, where appropriate, laboratory conditions to assess its performance in all relevant criteria and has excelled in its field, while offering exceptional value for money.
A RIDE magazine
Recommended triangle means that a product has either done an outstanding job at a higher price or a reasonable job but at a significantly lower price. So while not worthy of a Best Buy, it still performs very well in one of these criteria.
The RIDE Best Buy and Recommended triangles stand for quality and value for money. Look for them when shopping.
tests are Our product by real bikers carried out experience of with years are bikes and and on real empirical with combined and developed testing qualified by carried out engineers.
FEATURES
As winter gloves, they may have a visor wipe — useful for wet rides — or touchscreencompatible sections on the fingers to control smartphones or sat navs. Some might also have wrist loops to keep them to hand when you take them off MATERIAL
Most heated gloves will have an outer formed from either man-made material or leather with an internal waterproof membrane. As with normal gloves, look for high-grip patches inside the hand and areas of extra material, such as in the ‘landing zones’, to increase abrasion resistance BATTERY DESIGN
Some batteries will consist of several cells joined within a hard shell, potentially with some form of charge-level indicator while others will just be cells wrapped in plastic. Hard-shell battery packs may be more cumbersome but could offer protection to the cells in the event of an impact SCALABILITY
While batteries can offer the best flexibility, you might want the reassurance of permanent heating from a hard-wire kit direct to the bike’s battery. Alternatively, see whether gloves can be used in conjunction with other clothing CUFFS
As heated gloves are inevitably intended for winter use, cuffs will usually — though not always — be long and with enough adjustment and material to allow them to go over jacket cuffs. However, because of the location of the control buttons and the extra bulk of the batteries, they may not physically go under them — check if this is your preference PROTECTION
There is no reason that heated gloves should offer less protection than normal, so look for knuckle protection — hard or soft — as well as nuggets on fingers and palm sliders, on the inside and outside of the hand and padding or armour on the wrist BATTERY LOCATION
Where the batteries are stored on the gloves can affect how they feel in use. Generally, on the outside of the wrist tends to feel less bulky than on the inside though this can often be a matter of personal preference CONTROLS
Most have a push-button on the back of the wrist to control the heat levels and are long-push to activate, then a single push to cycle through the settings — usually low, medium and high. Some may also have an app that controls them as well as the push buttons CE RATING
Like normal gloves, heated gloves are also given CE ratings. 1 is a normal pass with KP denoting optional knuckle protection testing; 2 is a superior pass and knuckle armour testing is compulsory