“When riding a motorcycle, gloves are important, protecting your hands as well as letting you control quite a few functions on the bike.”
States Obvious
As one of those ATGATT people, (All the Gear, All The Time) I wear them on even a short trip to the shops. (That may be because on my bike, I can usually find a long way to the shop).
We all have different hand shapes too, and want a glove which fits well. There are often specific dimensions which make or break glove comfort level and it’s different for each of us. For me it seems my knuckle width and how far I can extend my thumb are what limits my choice – apparently through weird biology or whatever, my thumb often hits the end of the allowed thumb space in a glove before it’s fully extended, and since that can be my indicator light tool, I need it to reach.
In the Spring this year, I was looking for a new summer glove. Summers here regularly hit high 30s (degrees C), with humidity on the silly side at 90%+. That means I need a glove which is going to vent, not leave my hands bathing in sweat, and still give me whatever protection I can get.
Since I cant rely on online buying (or even a single manufacturer) to always have that thumb length/knuckle dimension, I happily go to trawl at my local motorcycle gear shop, NAPS.
So which did I get?
After trying on a lot of summer gloves, the bottom line was that I chose the RS Taichi Raptor Mesh glove which including consumption tax were about 10,500yen on the day. (Reminder to self: buy new summer gloves at the end of the previous summer season for discount!)
I went for these as they have that thumb space I mentioned, without having long dangly fingers, the knuckle was comfy, and the knuckle protector is split between index finger and the rest, which helps. Whilst not a gauntlet, it does come down past the wrist with some carbon fibre in plastic guards, sewn into the leather. This is something I appreciated as my previous summer gloves were shorties and whilst they were fine and well made, that wrist always felt exposed. Whilst the upper is mostly mesh, the palm is various forms of leather. They’re all double stitched, and inside feel smooth which I suspect is the nylon and neoprene. The only downside to the construction is that there aren’t any reflective patches.
So how do they ride?
After 3 months of usage through this summer, they’ve felt very comfortable, even after long (14 hour), hot rides, there have been no bits of glove or dye on my hands, and there was never any bad sweat build up, as I’ve had before with other gloves. The Velcro fastener feels good across the wrist despite looking fairly narrow and the two wrist guards I mentioned don’t feel awkward on the bars, and the gloves come off easily, even in the heat.
They also have a phone friendly area on the index finger, and whilst you can’t zoom as such as there’s only one, you can (safely, stopped at the side of the road) dismiss any messages without removing the gloves. For what it’s worth, I could also easily open and close zips with them on, and activate buttons on my Scala Freecom4 even whilst moving.
All in all, I’m pleased with them this first season, so I’ll update as to how they wear.