What are the best options in motorcycle gloves?
If you are on a budget (or are just not sure if you will be staying with motorcycling), a better option than the regular leather work gloves are roper gloves, originally made for people doing work on horseback. They look just like regular work gloves, but they are cut slightly differently, and made from slightly thinner leather, to allow more finger sensation and movement. Any ranch supply store, or most hunting and outdoors stores, should have an assortment — they are often made from deer, elk, and kangaroo skin. Or, if you want to spend a little bit more money and get an official motorcycle seal of approval, you can buy the same thing from Aerostich — you’ll want the catalog eventually anyway. In super hot weather, and for low speed in-town riding only, I strongly prefer the gloves made for off-road riding (examples from New Enough) –
Look for gloves made of heavier leather on the palms. The knuckle guards are kind of a gimmick and can actually be harmful if the gloves are cheap. Your first pair of gloves should not be expensive. Gauntlet-style gloves provide some wrist support, but as you’ll see when you’re on the bike, you don’t want to limit your range of motion in your wrists. Gloves with perforated leather between the fingers will cool your fingers as you ride, just spread your fingers apart a bit. (This is less so in the classroom, but since you’ll probably be on the road soon enough, keep that in mind.) Beyond that, the most important thing is fit. They should fit like, well, a glove. You don’t want a lot of bunched up extra leather under or around your hands. You also don’t want it to be to tight because your hands will swell a bit and then it’ll restrict blood flow to your fingers, which is kind of the inverse of comfortable.
First off, it’s great that you are taking the beginning rider course. It will teach you a lot about how to be safe. 1) Wrist guards restrict your movement too much to use on a motorcycle. 2) I like knuckleguards on mine. I don’t think they are critical, but they do add a level of protection. Your knuckles aren’t the most likely part of your hand to hit when you fall. That would be your pinkie, palm (especially the bottom & outside near your pinkie) and (secondarily) thumb. Rather than worrying about knuckleguards or not, look for gloves that have a double layer over the palm and pinkie and has high quality stitching (even stitching that stays an even distance from the edges), that is double or even triple stitched in impact areas. Quality of the leather itself is also important, but harder to distinguish at a glance. 3) I prefer gauntlets, but gloves are fine for the street. The benefits for gauntlets are they are less likely to come off in an accident (still highly unlikely with high
I went to several motorcycle shops trying on gloves before I settled on the Icon 29’er. It’s been 107F in central Texas, so I didn’t want gauntlets that would block airflow up the sleeves of my jacket. These have a mesh back and supple leather palms, and I definitely prefer the way the grips on my bike feel with gloves rather than without. When winter comes I’ll buy something with gauntlets (or maybe heated gloves). The armored knuckles and wrists are neat (Alpine Stars made a pair that I want, but they’re very expensive), but I went with something a little more minimalist that give me a comfortable grip and some protection against road rash.
one of my favorite features on motorcycle gloves, which i’ve only found on heavier non-summer gloves, is a little rubber squeegee on the outside of the left hand index finger, so you can use it to wipe your helmet faceplate. oh, one tip: if you put a piece of electrical tape along the bottom of your helmet face plate, you can then lift and adjust it to block just the sun and radically improve your vision if you’re riding right towards the sun in the late afternoon or early morning without blocking large chunks of your field of vision.
