It’s tempting, oh so tempting, to forgo riding gloves on really hot days. I admit it; occasionally, on quick trips around town, I’ll leave them on the shelf. But if I’m going to be covering some serious ground, like on a trip from, say, Los Angeles to Sturgis, there’s no way I’m riding without hand protection. It’s just got to be really, really comfortable.

I’ve tried gloves that are made almost entirely of mesh, and while they offer a lot of airflow, I don’t have much faith that they’ll come between my hands and the pavement. While shopping around for gloves last summer, I decided to give up a little airflow in exchange for better protection. I settled, happily, on Roadgear’s Airtec glove.

A high-tensile mesh is mixed with leather from the fingers to the wrist, giving you a good combination of airflow and protection and some futuristic styling. The Airtecs are comfortable right from the start; the leather is very soft, and the combination of materials makes these gloves incredibly flexible. In addition, the interior lining on top of the hand and around the wrist is like a super-thin fleece. And a suede panel between the thumb and first finger on both hands gives you a good, solid grip on the bars.

While there’s no hard armor in the glove, there is extra padding on the knuckles and finger joints, and reinforced leather panels on the palm. A strip of reflective piping also adds to the safety factor. As for protection from the heat, the Airtecs fared much better than I expected, given all the leather. There’s mesh on the tops and sides of the fingers, top of the hand, and top of the wrist. And it provided an impressive amount of airflow; enough to really cool my hands while I was moving.

In the end, the Airtec’s most impressive feature is probably its price. Thirty bucks for a well-made glove with lots of features? Forget about my hands — that keeps the heat off my wallet. RB

SOURCES

Airtec Gloves $29.90
Sizes XS-XXXL
Roadgear
800/854-4327

roadgear.com