Summer Glovin'

PHOTOS  |  KATE DISHER-QUILL

If you’re anything like us at the IVV office, you don’t like being told what to do. In fact, you may go so far as to do the opposite, even if the “advice” is in your own best interest. You’re intelligent and capable of making your own goddamn decisions, but for the sake of information, here’s some things you might like to consider on the many nights you’re kept awake thinking about your handsy hands.

The likelihood of your palms getting intimate with a gravel driveway increases exponentially the one time you decide to go gloveless because you ‘aren’t going far anyway’. A painful experience if ever I’ve had one, in which I have subsequently felt naked and vulnerable on my bike any time my hands aren’t covered. Feel free to take the risk with your own hand nudity if you’ve got the gonads.

Gloves literally get between you and the road, and everything else, including your controls. If they’re a bit big for your hands and you happen to flick the clutch lever as you go to grab it, you could be surprised at the level of excruciating pain felt as you break a nail inside your glove, but with the added emotional pain of people laughing at you when you explain why you’re getting so teary.

You are more likely to buy gloves that fit properly if you try them on first. This lack of foresight is how I ended up with a pair of Biltwell Bantam gloves that make me feel like a middle-aged gardener. In an ideal world, they will fit like a second skin and be appropriate for the application so you are free to focus your attention on your riding rather than your hands.

“Your body was never meant to be flung against things at speed.”

— John Del Rosario

Here’s the long and short of it. Depending on how you ride and where and when you do it, you might discover a preference for leather or textile, or want more or less venting/weather protection (ever worn summer gloves in winter? or leather gloves in serious rain?). There are options with hardened knuckle and palm protection (carbon fibre/metal/plastic/foam), and double layers and double stitching in impact areas. External rather than internal stitches around fingers and palms usually make seams less abrasive and more comfortable against your skin. You might hate the sound of Velcro - lucky for you, gloves can also make use of buttons or d-rings for closure. Some gloves include touchscreen capabilities. They can also have inbuilt heating or removable liners. Or be fingerless. Or pre-curved. Or you might just want to make your hands extra grippy. Or you might be trying to hide every square inch of your pale ass from the sun.

Welding gloves probably won’t cut it: keep them where they belong. But surgical gloves can play second fiddle to a proper pair as extra windbreak. In a pinch.

Gloves used:

header. Deus Ex Machina Gripping

1st group image L-R. Dainese Blackjack, Rome SDS Index (for snowboarding), Roland Sands Mission, Tour Master Deerskin, Roland Sands Riot, RJays Viola

2. Roland Sands Riot 3. Roland Sands Bezel 4. Rome SDS Index (for snowboarding) 5. Ixon RS Print VX HP Mesh 6. Tour Master Deerskin 7. BMW Rallye 2 8. Deus Ex Machina Gripping 9. Dainese Blackjack 10. Deus Ex Machina Gripping 11. Rome SDS Index (for snowboarding) 12. Roland Sands Bezel