I gave Sean MacDonald over at Lanesplitter a bunch of crap after he went all gooey on a pair of gloves from Racer, an Austrian brand with distribution in the US. He challenged me to actually try the gloves, so I did. After a few emails with the distributor in the US, a great guy named Lee, I ordered a few pair of gloves to try out.
The problem is that I have stupidly long fingers. Not long in the normal sense that I would need size Large gloves, but stupidly long in the sense that I actually only own one pair of glove that really fits, and they were off a clearance rack of gloves that no one else fit into. Length-wise, a men’s 10 or 10.5 is usually the trick. Of course, then I end up with a super wide glove with really bulky fingers. It’s not a good thing, and I generally accept stuffing my fingers into a 9 and hoping I can take breaks.
The gloves from the clearance rack are summer gloves and at first, I thought they were too big. Then I rode with them. Huge revelation. Before that, I’d never worn gloves that fit properly. You know how they say to buy gear you’ll wear? Day after day, I kept putting those $14.99 clearance-rack Speed and Strength gloves on. Ugly, dorky, but damn do they actually fit.
The Racer Traveller DXL (ladies extra large) gloves actually fit pretty well, too. They are bigger in the palm than I need, but not nearly to the extent a men’s glove is, and are long enough that my fingers and thumbs don’t get jammed up. It’s also not a summer glove. Not a proper winter one, but better than any other glove I have that fits when it comes to weather. It’s waterproof and the lining is soft. It has hard knuckle protection, also a step up from anything else I own (that fits). The whole fit thing is a huge issue – joint pain is nothing to mess with and jamming your fingers can lead to cartilage damage. I don’t want to go there.
I’ll be riding with them tomorrow and beyond. I’m pretty stoked.
