I’ve been using a pair of Oakley gloves that have been threatening to unravel themselves after suffering a slash on palm seam from a tumble on volcanic rubble. To its credit my hand suffered no cut in that incident. But that seam is bit by bit coming apart, so I finally picked up these new Giro gloves to try. Only used on one grueling hot crosscountry ride so far, but my opinion is positive.
These are pretty thinly constructed full finger gloves. The thin construction allows for a good amount of flex and suppleness, this is one of the few gloves I’ve had that fit, as the saying goes, like a glove. I bought the small size, it fits my thin profile hands and fingers well. The light construction also helps ventilation, the synthetic leather palms even have perforations. The side edges of the fingers have the mesh that Dave so hates. Doesn’t bother me.
First three fingertips have gripy material which remains to see how long they will last. Same goes for the “sonic welded” light armor on the back/top side. Back of thumb has a softer material that is helpful as a sweat/snot wipe. There is only the patch of “technogel” padding on the karate chop area of the palm. In my opinion, and my bruised palms opinion in the pic, that that was not the ideal location for the pad.
These gloves will serve as full finger cross-country gloves well, but are a bit light for serious down hill. It also remains to be seen how durable they are with its light construction.
3+ cross-country galloping monkeys out of 4.
Lingere mesh material – just wait until your first gribbel at St. Louis: You’ll find your gloves full of dirt.
I was looking into the more F/R-ish Remedy gloves, but there was only white. WTF?! Sizing fit was like DaKine (the Xen fit like Pearl Iz). Later, Chris told me that he noticed that a lot of the “sonic welded” and “direct injected” armor stuff was already peeling off the new gloves!