- A Fast Bike to North Cape - April 7, 2025
- Helmet Carry Case from Amazon. - March 31, 2025
- Wine Trails and Wheat Belts - March 21, 2025
Summer glove search
For a long time I rode with rather poor summer gloves. Actually when I started riding I had flimsy gloves that offered almost no protection.
Then I started wearing Moto-X gloves in summer simply copying a mate, but these don’t provide much protection for tarmac. I then slowly improved my summer gloves but none of them were well made or comfortable.
Some of my previous summer gloves.
Once I started doing frequent tours I decided I must improve my hand comfort and also bump up my protection.
After trying on numerous gloves I wound up with two decent pairs in Japan. One from RS Taichi which were multi layered and offered about as good protection in a short glove as I could find. Then I added a pair from Rough & Road with Coolmax liner for the very hottest days of summer in Japan where the heat was almost unbearable. Alas both were in the cartons stolen by Australia Post couriers when shipped from Japan.
What made these gloves so good for me they were both lined and the fingers were stitched carefully. I suffer from dermatitis and am allergic to the tannins used in making leather. I can use a separate liner but that becomes a hassle as does needing to reapply barrier creme. A built in liner works better.
Currently:
I have a pair of summer gloves I thought would be suitable. The Merlin Shenstone gloves I purchased last year, but their initially smooth polyester interior liner has not aged well and outside they have started to fray.
Rev’it Sand 4 gloves
A few months ago I found out Rev’it brand offers a summer glove with a liner and what appears to be high protection level. At last last years Black Friday sale event I got a pair discounted but they have sat unused.
The Sand 4 have extra layers in numerous places and armor on knuckles and fingers and reinforcement with sliders on outer of pinky finger and slider on back of thumb and outer area of palm.
The fingers as you can see are stitched on outer so nothing inside rubbing against my fingers. The liner covers all of the interior of the glove. It is smooth and will help to wick away moisture while insulating my skin from the raw leather.
These seem well constructed however they are a bizarre fit.
The cut of the gloves is very slim and they are stiff perhaps due to the honeycomb armor on the back of glove. Additionally there is an extra layer of leather stitched to the inside of the thumb down and across the inner palm and a small honey comb slider on the outside which combine to make the thumb very stiff.
I initially wondered do these run a size smaller than tagged and is that the problem but the length is ample for my long fingers with lots of space left over and they are not binding diagonally across the palm like when you try on a small glove. They seem to match the size chart but just fit snug.
This is the risk of buying online. But living in the far north there is not much choice. We get a poor range in shops here, just Dririder and other cheapo crap.
I since read people reporting the gloves tight fit does break in after couple of outings however getting to do that now might be a way off since my little GS was stolen and I now have no motorcycle.
If you are considering these gloves go up a size but I would suggest must try them on before buying.
