Riding Gloves Buyer's Guide - No Glove, No Love

Why You Need Proper Motorcycle Riding Gloves

And why they need to fit properly

You hear the same excuses all the time:
"I'm not planning on crashing."
"I don't ride to fall."
"I ride under control at all times."

There's a common proverb that perfectly explains why you should wear ATGATT (All The Gear All The Time): "It's why they're called 'accidents,' not 'on purposes.'" No one plans on falling off. But if you're heading to the supermarket with the intent of buying a particular item, why do you go there with more than the exact amount of money for that item in your pocket?

A set of good motorcycle-oriented riding gloves should be just as integral to your daily riding gear as a quality helmet. Your hands are your body's most exposed yet fragile and sensitive extremities when you ride. And if you do fall, nine times out of ten the one part of your body that will surely come in contact with the pavement at one point or another will be your hands. We depend on our hands almost 99 percent of the time to perform daily tasks-so why would you want to leave them exposed and unprotected?

Note that we said "motorcycle-oriented riding gloves." Why not the rancher's style gloves you often see motorcycle police officers wearing? Ranch hands aren't expected to impact the tarmac and then drag across it at speed. Motorcyclists require a certain amount of specialized protection; they need to withstand both impact and abrasion, because a crash on the pavement often involves a hard initial hit followed by a long slide until you come to a stop. The top motorcycle-apparel brands that are heavily involved in racing have learned over the years from their sponsored riders exactly where and how much protection is needed, and advancing technology has enabled the breed to improve by leaps and bounds over where it was even 10 years ago.

That protection needs to stay in place in order to be effective, and that's where other aspects of motorcycle-specific design come into play. Most motorcycle gloves now come equipped with an adjustable wrist strap that keep them from sliding off your hand no matter how hard you pull. We've seen more than a few instances in the past of gloves coming off in a crash (for instance, the wild flinging of arms and legs from tumbling, or sliding on the ground feet first), and the top brands discovered long ago that a zippered or hook-and-loop-adjustable gauntlet wasn't enough to keep the glove on the rider's hand where it would do the most good.

Another area that is commonly overlooked is proper fit. All too often we see riders with gloves that are a loose-fitting "close enough" size, with baggy fingertips and bunching palms/fingers. There's a reason the adage "fits like a glove" was coined. In order to receive all the benefits offered by a modern riding glove, it needs to fit your hand properly (it should be noted that a couple of gloves we tried for this buyer's guide that were "close" in fit did not have enough adjustment in the wrist strap to prevent the glove coming off). Skillfully piloting a sportbike requires quick, unhindered and sensitive access to the controls, and an ill-fitting pair of gloves can be more of an impediment than you might think.

While we've tried to include as large a cross-section of size testers here, hands and gloves are just like heads and helmets-everyone's different, and some just fit better than others into a particular brand. It's tough in this age of dealers stocking fewer brands to try on, but we'd advise going out to as many motorcycle events as you can where retailers are present so you can try to find the brand and size that fits you and your tastes/needs the best. -K.K.