Here’s the problem. You stay pretty motionless while riding a motorcycle. This makes it hard for the body to generate heat to keep warm. This is a major problem while riding at high speeds in cold temperatures. I got frostbite my first year of riding on my toes because I wasn’t adequately protected from the elements.

It’s been a major struggle of mine to keep my hands warm in anything below 40°F at highway speeds. Heated grips and handguards help, but you really need special purpose gloves to keep your hands warm. The problem with buying winter gloves is that they tend to be very bulky. The insulation material makes the gloves look more like a ski mitt than a motorcycle glove, and the fine manipulation required to work the throttle can become lost. I own a pair of Tour Master winter gloves, and it feels like I am not touching the controls at all.

Rev’It makes several winter gloves. Thanks to Dennis over at Beach Moto, I selected the Fahrenheit H2O waterproof winter motorcycle glove. He helped me with the sizing, suggesting an XL that fit perfectly.

Would Rev’It’s high technology help me overcome my cold hand blues?
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The first half of my ride home from Georgia was great. I was moving along at a good clip, and the sun was bright and shining.

That is, until I got to Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Fayetteville seems to be the tipping point for bad motorcycle weather. On my trip down, my route south of Fayetteville was completely covered by rain. I guess the northern part of my return trip got jealous and wanted to get in on the “fun.”

It rained non-stop, and hard, all the way home. It wasn’t as bad as my trip down, but it was a soaking rain. Paranoid (and hopefully wiser) from my gear problems on the way down, I adjusted my waterproofing strategy slightly.
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As mentioned earlier, I spent four days on a motorcycle trip to see two of my friends outside of Savannah, Georgia. It’s almost five hundred highway miles, which winds up being between eight to nine hours depending on traffic, weather conditions, and the bike I’m on. My best time was on my first trip on my FZ6 because I had great weather and a very comfortable saddle.

This time I took Raider, my BMW R1150R. In theory, it should have been the best of both of my trips: the comfort of my old K1200LTE touring bike, and the mobility of Cylon. Thanks to the weather and an extremely hard seat, it was really the worst of both worlds.

But I still had a kick ass time. ;)
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I bought my first pair of Held Ninja gloves a little over three years ago. They had a manufacturing flaw where the stitching around the fingers began to give way. I returned them to the Held distributor, who sent me a new pair that was sewn together by Igor. Less than a year later, the right glove began to deteriorate near the wrist. A small hole developed, which eventually grew into a larger hole. If the gloves fell apart under normal wear and tear, what would happen in a crash? I started looking for another glove.

I researched a few other full gauntlet gloves with the help of Web Bike World, ADVrider.com, and the FZ6 forum over on sportbikes.net. I was chugging the Motoport Kool-Aid and bought a pair of the kevlar motorcycle gloves. I tried two pair but the fit was off (omen), and I returned them.

I purchased a pair of Teknic Speedstar full gauntlet leather gloves from NewEnough and have worn them for about 1500 miles. Priced at $99 on closeout, the Speedstars won out against the Alpinestar SP-1, Cortech Adrenaline, and Shift Carbine gloves. I considered some of the Rev’It gloves, but the lack of full wrist protection steered me away.
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I think gloves are probably the third piece of protective gear typically purchased by a motorcyclist. First the helmet, then the jacket, then gloves. Boots are probably fourth, with most bikers never getting specialized pants. I wear all of these things (and sometimes more) every time I ride. I use a keyboard and mouse to make a living, so I am even more paranoid about my hands than most.

Leather is typically the best protective material for abrasion depending on the quality, thickness, and type of leather (cow vs kangaroo vs goat, etc). Leather forms to your body’s peculiarities over time, which made my otherwise questionably-made Held Ninja gloves a fantastic glove to wear.

Unfortunately, leather’s protective qualities fade over time due to exposure to the elements. I am not sure how violent the quality degradation is, Cycleport founder Wayne seems to think it can be up to 20%, especially if the leather has been exposed to rain.

I purchased a pair of Cycleport (also known as Motoport) kevlar full gauntlet kevlar racing gloves. The gloves were $129 before shipping, which pits it against the upper tier of racing gloves from other manufacturers. Here’s my review.
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I ordered a custom-fitted motorcycle jacket, pants, and gloves from Motoport (also known as Cycleport) about six weeks ago. The company makes all kinds of promises: incredible abrasion resistance, great impact absorption through the armor and reinforced areas and element resistant. The best claim was that if they are unable to repair any piece of their equipment after a crash, they will replace it for free.

Anecdotal evidence on the Internet seemed to validate these claims. One fellow was speeding at about 140MPH on his bike, saw a law enforcement officer, and clamped down on the brakes. He lost control and slid for quite a long ways. His bike was totaled, but the suit went in for repair to reflective tape.

$1200 and six weeks later, my order arrived today. It’s mostly bad news.
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Like other aspects of motorcycle protective gear, there are roughly 10 hojillion different kinds of gloves out there. There are lots of combinations, but the basic attributes are variations on the following themes:

• Color
• Material — often tied to the different riding seasons; mesh, textile, leather, or a combination of these
• Heavily padded/armored or not
• Cuff/gauntlet length
• Insulated or not
• Water resistant, waterproof, or neither
• Heavily padded palms and fingertips or not
• Style — mostly broken up into cruiser, sport, and dirt
• Price

My requirements for a daily use glove were: heavily armored, leather gauntlet glove with a padded palm, good ventilation, no insulation, and would match my bike. For under $100. Oh yeah, it had to fit. Like a glove.

Believe it or not, despite the tons of gloves out there, it was hard to find a glove that fit all of my requirements.

Let’s take a quick sample of what’s out there, above and below the $100 target price point.

Most sport gloves do not have a full cuff, let alone gauntlet length. With a full cuff, if your sleeves retract from your gloves during a ride, your wrist is exposed. If you don’t have any cuff at all, then you’re even more exposed.

For example, here’s a very popular glove, the Alpinestar Air Carbon. Note the reinforced knuckles and the decent venting, both requirements of mine:

However, the Air Carbon lacks a cuff, and would leave your wrist exposed in the event of a dump if your jacket sleeves rode up.

Here’s the Joe Rocket Highside.

At $50 it’s a pretty good glove — full gauntlet, all leather. But it’s lacking a lot of the key features I needed. There’s no venting on these gloves. These gloves are padded, but not armored. Comfort and protection were my top two requirements, followed by price. I passed on the Highsides.

The Teknic Lightning Pro looked like a great glove for $80:

It’s an incremental step up from the Highsides — armored knuckles, full gauntlet, all leather, good padding on the palms. But no venting!

I rejected the MotoGP RPM gloves ($80) for the same reason.

Next, please!

The Teknic Violator Pro gloves are highly recommended by various motorcycle gear review sites. I almost went out of my budget by a mere $25 to get these gloves, widely regarded as very comfortable. But given my gripe about the last three gloves, can you pick out why I discarded these as an option?

That’s right, no vents.

Was I stuck with a mesh and leather glove that didn’t offer full protection? Would I have to give up my gauntlet requirement to get a full leather glove with venting?

I read a review of the Ninja glove online. The Ninja is made by a company named Held, and they weren’t sold through my usual suspects of Web gear sites or local shops. I found them at New Enough, whom I also bought my perforated leather motorcycle jacket from. But that’s another review. I placed my order.

So, how do they feel?

After almost 300 miles of wearing my gloves, I have to say I am extremely pleased. I haven’t fully tested the ventilation during the hottest weather, but it was in the 80s with high humidity the day our windows were installed and they did just fine. I have worn them for over two straight hours without any discomfort or sweat buildup. Granted, these were overcast days, but I was sweating elsewhere nonetheless.

Thanks to the numeric sizing scheme (typical for expensive fashion gloves, not so typical for protective gear) they fit me very nicely. Just a little hard to tug off of my fingertips, which I appreciate. I wear a 9, my friend Bond probably needs a 9.5 or a 10. We both wear a size “L” in the less-exact letter sizes, so you can imagine the importance of these more finely-tuned sizes.

Luckily for me, I haven’t taken a fall in these guys yet. Unluckily for the review, I can’t post any crash data to see how all the uber protection technology performs.

I definitely believe I’ll wear these gloves for three seasons at least: spring, summer, and fall. Who knows if they’ll make it into winter use, but I did buy some less expensive and less feature-filled winter gloves (more on those later).

Fist of Legend:

• Venting: Check. The first thing you’ll notice is that there’s not a ton more venting on these than the other models. But especially compared to the Violator Pro, the finger vents on the Ninja allow for a lot more airflow. Their positioning is ingenious — when you’re riding the bike the air zooms right into the vents.
• All leather: Check. The Ninja is made out of Pittard’s WR 100X special sheep leather, which is specially selected and treated to withstand rain and sweat. Normal leather gloves will shrink and contort when wet, and will not retain its original shape when dried. The sheep leather is also 27% more abrasion resistant than cow leather.
• Armored: Check. The Ninja has hard shell knuckle protectors made out of carbon fiber and Aramid Kevlar with padding underneath.
• Heavily padded: Check, with the bonus of a padded gauntlet cuff. Check out the little pads on the tops of the fingertips!
• Two adjustment straps at the wrist and at the gauntlet help to keep the gloves on. The strength of these ties was criticized in the review I linked, but I haven’t had this problem, despite having to cinch the straps all the way down due to my little bitch wrists.
• Price: Check — just barely skated in under the wire at $98.

Weak Grips:

• None, although given the permutations of what someone else is looking for in a glove they may choose one of the other (otherwise fine) gloves I rejected.
• Wish it was a little less expensive, but I did stay within my budget.

Held Ninja Gloves, I throw my hands in the air, wave them like I just don’t care, and give you:

Five out of five STFU mugs!