Summer gloving! We round up the best mitts.
We round up the best mid-priced race gloves for your hands to hanker after...
Your hands pack in a huge amount of nerves, and when it comes to motorcycling that’s important for two reasons. The first is that these nerves create feel. Feel is wonderful stuff, and the more of this you get transferred from your bike and through your gloves to your hands (which then send it to your brain), the better. We’ve chosen some of the best reasonably priced gloves on the market (mostly around the £100 mark) – some top spec race gloves, other lower spec street gloves – but they all offer decent feel wherever you ride. The second reason is that if you should ever fall off said machine the nerve endings will soon be communicating lots of messages to your brain – all hurty ones, too. That’s why it’s crucial to do your research and understand how a particular glove is made, because their construction, materials and specific design all go towards you feeling less pain when it matters – so long as you’ve chosen the right pair…
• Spada: Curve
£74.95
www.spadaclothing.co.uk Stingray leather at this price is something we’ve not seen before. It’s tough old stuff, and is used on the palm of this Curve glove for added impact and abrasion resistance. Elsewhere, the glove uses cow aniline leather with goat leather on the back of the hand. There’s carbon protection on the knuckle and cuff and TPU pods on the fingers – which also have two layers of leather – to make the Curve a very resilient glove indeed.
• RST: Pro Series CPX-C
£89.99
www.rst-moto.com The C in the title refers to RST’s use of carbon, as found in the knuckle protection. The palm is made using kangaroo leather with cowhide in other areas. The gloves use Kevlar thread in vulnerable areas and are Kevlar lined for additional safety. There’s a double wrist and cuff closure system to ensure they stay on, and a silicon Powergrip material is used on the fingers to provide excellent control to your throttle.
• Dainese: Veloce
£89.99
www.dainese.com Dainese’s glove range is extensive, but we were surprised to see these Veloce gloves at this price point. They’re constructed using cowhide with a kangaroo palm, giving subtle sensitivity where it matters. Safety-wise, they're CE Cat II certified thanks to soft inserts at the palm and fingers with polyurethane knuckle guards. Closure comes in the form of a cuff strap with tightening strap. The fingers come precurved, and there’s also a ladies version.
• Oxford: RP-1
£69.99
www.oxprod.com Not content with a new range of leathers, Oxford has produced a new range of gloves, too. These are the top spec RP-1. Made from goat skin at the palm and cowhide elsewhere, the gloves also have an Aramid lining in the upper and a Coolmax lining to deal with sweaty palms. Stitching is all external and the wrist, fingers and palm are all precurved. There’s padding at the pertinent bits, a little finger bridge and a TPU palm slider.
• Furygan: AFS-18
£99.99
www.furygan.com Fresh in from the Frenchies at Furygan are these AFS-18 gloves. This is the firm’s top-spec racing glove, but it still comes in under the £100 mark. They use a goat leather construction, using perforated leather for better airflow to the skin. There’s a Skin Protect lining, meaning increased abrasion resistance should the external metacarpal protection need any back-up. They are CE approved, use extra padding in vulnerable areas and have two layers of leather at the palm.
• Racer: High Rac er
£139.99
www.tran-am.co.uk Austrian firm Racer has only been in the market for 20 years, but they’ve made a big impact on the glove scene, and we always hear good things about the quality of Racer mits. These High Racer racing gloves feature a kangaroo construction along the entire inside of the hand, carbon protection at the knuckles, fingers and cuff, as well as Knox hand armour protecting your poor little scaphoid should the worse happen.
• ixon: RS Moto HP
£99.99
www.oxprod.com Again, not the firm’s top of the range glove, these Ixon RS Moto HPs still pack the spec in. They are CE approved (as all French motorcycle clothing has to be these days) and are full of features, like ventilated knuckle protectors, a slider on the side of the palm, a finger bridge – and all constructed from goat and cow leather with a Noxiguard fabric inner that protects against tearing and abrasion. Fingers and palm are precurved for riding comfort, and are available in up to 4XL.
• Weise: Shark WP
£89.99
www.thekeycollection.co.uk Using a full grain leather, Weise’s Shark gloves use the Knox SPS scaphoid system, TPU shell armour on the knuckles and fingers and two layers of leather at the impact points. The glove becomes waterproof with the use of a McTex lining to make sure that your hands stay dry while it rains outside. Unlike some other waterproof linings, the McFit system secures the lining without stitching so it won’t twist or pull out.
• Alpinestars: SP-2
£89.99
www.alpinestars.com These SP-2s are quite a distance from Alpinestars’ top spec glove, the magnificent GP Tech, but coming in at comfortably under £100 the SP-2 is a high specced pair of mits and borrows a lot from race R&D. More focused for the road, the gloves get a carbon knuckle, Alpinestars’ patented finger bridge on your outer pinkies, slide panels on the cuff and energy absorbing EVA impact pads on the palms – all wrapped up in a cow and goat leather mix. Love the flouro, too!
• Knox: Biomech
£129.99
www.planet-knox.com If you step one place down from the Handroid you get to the Biomech – the glove of choice for Michael Dunlop. It's full of features, like the Boa closure system, scaphoid protection, finger sliders and a knuckle with energy absorbing honeycomb gel. It uses kangaroo leather on the palm for good feel and aniline leather on the fingers and back of the band, all stitched together with high tenacity polyester thread.