- Rev’it Sand 4 gloves - January 21, 2025
- Where to next - January 3, 2025
- China Motorcycle Ride Part Two - November 30, 2024
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 multi day 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 the 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 apply a barrier creme but a liner is better for me.
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 they are at the lite end of protection as far a summer gloves go.
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 ultra slim and they are excessively stiff. That’s due to the honeycomb armor on the back of glove which does not bend easy. This means trying to close my hand around the handlebar grip requires ongoing effort. There is a constant tension from the honeycomb section trying to straighten itself out.
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. It is almost impossible to bend my thumb or get a good grip with my throttle hand.
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 the correct size but fit snug like skinny stretch jeans yet without the flexibility needed.
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 gear.
I was going to take these on my next tour in couple weeks but I fear throttle fatigue would become a problem not being able to easily close hand around the grip.
I since read people reporting the tight fit does break in, eventually, but for me I think the discomfort during that period would not be worth it and I’d just as soon look for something else.
