xj750_Pete
Young Rider
After riding for so long with my summer gloves (Cortech Adrenaline) I've decided to purchase a nice pair of gloves for colder weather. Even though I am lucky enough to live in an area that allows me to ride all year long, there are those night and mornings that are too cold for my summer gloves. A few hours of searching and comparing prices and features, I settled on the Tourmaster Winter Elite Gloves. These gloves costs $100 with free shipping at Motorcycle-Superstore. Compared to the other gloves out there, this glove seemed to offer good insulation, is water proof, offers good protection and a great value for the money.
The glove has reflective patches on the outter edges of the glove. Towards the end of the cuff, there is a water proof liner with a bungee cord to keepwater out. I found out later that this doesn't work too well with mesh clothing. Inside the guantlet section of each glove is a nylon cover that extends and covers most of the glove for extreme cold weather riding and/or rain. There is also some grippy material on the cover as well. On the left glove there is also a windshield wiper mounted on the thumb. As far as protection goes, there is quite a bit of padding on the knuckles and fingers. Not exactly sure how this would hold up compared to hard protection like the carbon fiber or polyurethane, but with the amount of padding I think they would perform OK.
The first thing I've noticed when I first tried these was feel. Compared to the thinner material on my Adrenaline's, grip feel was diminished quite a bit, but after a few rides, I got used to it. If anyone has ever ridden with gloves and then ridden with bare hands would know what I mean. Another problem I found was with the "pre-curved" fingers. To me it did not seemed pre-curved enough. It took a little bit more effort to hold the grips and after awile my hands started to ache. With the Adrenaline's, my hands never ached and holding the grips didn't take much effort at all and felt natural. Again, after a few rides, I adjusted to them and they weren't too bad at all.
In the rain, these gloves worked pretty good. Temperatures were in the low 50s, and my hands were mostly dry after riding in the rain for about half an hour. I say mostly because while riding, water did start to creep in through the wrist. This was because I was wearing a mesh jacket with a water proof liner so the glove liner with its bungee cord didn't make a good seal. The thumb mounted shield wiper did not work too well. I believe the problem lies within the material Tourmaster chose to use; the plastic is just too hard and doesn't do a good job of contouring to the helmet shield. It was better to just use the palm to wipe away the majority of the water and let the wind wash away the remaining droplets. Once the temperatures dropped down to the low 40s, my finger tips started to get cold going highway speeds, but never did my whole hand go numb. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to use the nylon covers so I can't comment on it, but I'm sure they would really help in colder temperatures.
Overall, I am happy with these gloves, though now I wish I went a size smaller. I have bought 3 gloves from Tourmaster and they were all Medium. These seem to fit a bit looser. Maybe its extra room for more liners?
The glove has reflective patches on the outter edges of the glove. Towards the end of the cuff, there is a water proof liner with a bungee cord to keepwater out. I found out later that this doesn't work too well with mesh clothing. Inside the guantlet section of each glove is a nylon cover that extends and covers most of the glove for extreme cold weather riding and/or rain. There is also some grippy material on the cover as well. On the left glove there is also a windshield wiper mounted on the thumb. As far as protection goes, there is quite a bit of padding on the knuckles and fingers. Not exactly sure how this would hold up compared to hard protection like the carbon fiber or polyurethane, but with the amount of padding I think they would perform OK.
The first thing I've noticed when I first tried these was feel. Compared to the thinner material on my Adrenaline's, grip feel was diminished quite a bit, but after a few rides, I got used to it. If anyone has ever ridden with gloves and then ridden with bare hands would know what I mean. Another problem I found was with the "pre-curved" fingers. To me it did not seemed pre-curved enough. It took a little bit more effort to hold the grips and after awile my hands started to ache. With the Adrenaline's, my hands never ached and holding the grips didn't take much effort at all and felt natural. Again, after a few rides, I adjusted to them and they weren't too bad at all.
In the rain, these gloves worked pretty good. Temperatures were in the low 50s, and my hands were mostly dry after riding in the rain for about half an hour. I say mostly because while riding, water did start to creep in through the wrist. This was because I was wearing a mesh jacket with a water proof liner so the glove liner with its bungee cord didn't make a good seal. The thumb mounted shield wiper did not work too well. I believe the problem lies within the material Tourmaster chose to use; the plastic is just too hard and doesn't do a good job of contouring to the helmet shield. It was better to just use the palm to wipe away the majority of the water and let the wind wash away the remaining droplets. Once the temperatures dropped down to the low 40s, my finger tips started to get cold going highway speeds, but never did my whole hand go numb. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to use the nylon covers so I can't comment on it, but I'm sure they would really help in colder temperatures.
Overall, I am happy with these gloves, though now I wish I went a size smaller. I have bought 3 gloves from Tourmaster and they were all Medium. These seem to fit a bit looser. Maybe its extra room for more liners?
