Motorcycle Gloves

In almost every low-side and high-side, the hands go down first — it is reflex, and you cannot train it away. That makes gloves the highest- leverage cheap purchase in motorcycling: good ones cost less than a tank of premium and are the difference between road rash on your palms and no road rash at all.

The certification to look for is EN 13594, the CE standard for motorcycle gloves, rated 1 or 2 (2 is the higher abrasion and burst threshold). Past the label, the features that matter are a palm slider (so a sliding hand skates instead of catching and tumbling your wrist), hard or reinforced knuckle protection, and a secure wrist closure — a glove that can be pulled off in a slide protects nothing. Everything else is comfort and weather.

The category splits by season. Summer gloves are perforated and short for airflow; all-season gloves add a waterproof membrane and insulation; winter gloves go gauntlet-style and thick, trading some feel for warmth; and race gauntlets go all-in on protection. Price mostly buys better leather, a real membrane, and touchscreen fingertips — nice, but the protection features come first.

Sizing is where people go wrong: a loose glove twists on your hand and the armor ends up in the wrong place. Measure your palm circumference, size for a snug fit with no fingertip gap, and check our glove-sizing guide. If you buy one upgrade this season, make it gloves.