A few months back, Jarrel at McBike got in an initial shipment of the Giro gloves. Since Hawaii always gets the stepchild treatment, the first ones received were the “less popular” colorways, the larger, more profitable accounts on the contiguous 48 getting all the good stuff first. For full-fingered MTB, there was the lighter Xen and the burlier Remedy. Root picked up a pair of the Xen gloves and reviewed them a couple of weeks back. There was only white in the Remedy, so although they were designed pretty well, I held out for either another color or for something nice to pop up on Chainlove. I had three sets of gloves, so didn’t really need another pair. On Tuesday when I happened to pass by the glove rack, lo, there were more gloves! Apparently, part of the fill-in order arrived and there were black Rampage gloves. They looked awesome – like something straight out of Mechanical Violator Hakaider.
The sizing is pretty much the same in these as in DaKine MTB gloves. Some of the construction details make me think that they are made in the same slave-labor camp factory overseas. The geometry is slightly different: As Root pointed out, the fingers seem a little long. The thumb fit perfectly. The fingers are on the slender side, so since these gloves are new, they take a little effort to pull on far enough for your fingers to go all the way in. That’s what causes the illusion of excessively long fingers – pull them all the way into the webs and they’re just right. The backs are a breathable mesh fabric, except for the snot-wipe thumbs; the Pittards WR100X leather overwrap on the tips of first two fingers; and the neoprene and armor on the first joints of the outer fingers, the outer palm, and across the wrist. The sides of the fingers are a solid stretch fabric, unlike the Xen’s, which use a see-through mesh. The Pittards palm is perforated and bereft of padding except for the reactive d3o gel crash pad on the outside edge of the palm.
The fit and comfort is very good. They are anatomically cut like most other modern MTB gloves so you are not fighting the natural tendency of the glove to lie flat in order to grip the bars and use the controls. In addition to this, there are Lycra gusseted pleats at the first finger joints to give even more freedom of motion. The armor panels are generally in about the correct locations. There is a handy pull-on tab on the underside of the wrist, but the skeletonized rubbery vinyl wrist closure looks a little fragile. At first glance, I thought the crash pad looked a little too far out on the outside of the palm, but Jarrel explained that this was done so as not to extend the thick material across the part of the palm where the median and ulnar nerve run, reducing the chance of pressure-related numbness. The absence of palm padding and the corresponding reduction of doubled layers of material make these gloves exceptionally light.
I took them for an after work spin this afternoon, and they were comfortable on the bike. It was only a road ride, so I am still not clear on the complete lack of padding, but I didn’t feel like they were lacking without it. These don’t have any grippy stuff on the fingertips, but grip on the controls was fine, and the tactile feel was good. Ventilation-wise, they weren’t any hotter than any of my other gloves. The only negative thing that stood out right away was the mesh material on the top of the thumbs. While putting the gloves on, this material and the Lycra tape on the edge of the cuff got hooked by the hook-side of the Velcro on the wrist closure. The thumb and the cuff are already fuzzy from being attacked by the Velcro. Wrapping the palm leather to the top of the thumb like the first two fingers would alleviate this problem. Another small irksome thing was the honeycomb structure of the d3o gel pad. If I put pressure on the pad, I could actually feel the perforations through the thin palm material. It’s a little unpleasant, but it neither hurts nor is uncomfortable. I experienced no numbness with these gloves.
Update – I took a spin on the Moment today with the Remedy gloves, and on the MTB bars I experienced the same numbness that I get with all my other gloves. I guess it was the drops on the ‘cross that prevented the numbness-inducing pressure.
Second Update – The cuff isn’t particularly tight, so junk can enter the gloves through the wrist opening. Grit may also enter through the large ventilation holes in the single-layer palm. They worked fine on the trail.
Made in Vietnam
About $38 USD
Recommended
Three-and-a-half out of four monkeys
0 Responses to “Giro Remedy MTB Gloves”