Motorcycle Glove Buying Guide

Most gloves are built for a season or a job:

• Summer and mesh gloves: maximum airflow with armour where it counts. Ideal for warm commutes.
• Sport and race gauntlets: long cuffs that cover the wrist and jacket sleeve, heavy armour, palm sliders. The most protective style.
• Waterproof winter gloves: insulated with a waterproof membrane. Bulkier, but they keep hands working in cold rain.
• Short urban gloves: cuffs that stop at the wrist. Convenient for town riding, with less coverage than a gauntlet.
• Adventure gloves: a middle ground with decent armour, some weather resistance and good dexterity for standing up on the pegs.

EN 13594:2015 is the CE standard for motorcycle gloves. Certified gloves are rated Level 1 or Level 2, and Level 2 demands more in testing, including a longer cuff, so it is the more protective rating. Look for the KP marking too: it means the knuckle protection has passed a dedicated impact test. Knuckle protection is optional for Level 1 gloves but mandatory at Level 2, which makes a Level 2 KP glove the highest certification you can buy.

Gloves are not a legal requirement for riding in the UK, but they are in France, where CE-marked gloves have been mandatory for both rider and passenger since November 2016, worth knowing before a touring trip. Legal or not, given how reliably hands hit the ground first, certified gloves are among the best value protection you can buy.

Leather remains the benchmark for abrasion resistance and feel, which is why race gloves are leather. Textile gloves win on weatherproofing and insulation, and many gloves mix the two: a leather palm with a textile back.

Beyond the base material, look for hard or dense armour over the knuckles, reinforcement or sliders on the palm heel (sliders let your hand skate rather than snag on tarmac, protecting the scaphoid, a small wrist bone that is notoriously slow to heal), plus reinforced stitching in the palm and a secure closure so the glove stays on in a slide.

A glove should be snug everywhere without pressure points, with just a little room at the fingertips. Too loose and the armour rotates out of place and the material bunches on the grips; too tight and your hands tire and chill faster.

Try gloves in a riding grip: fingers curved as they would be on the bars. Good gloves are cut with pre-curved fingers so the seams sit away from your skin in that position. Check you can feel and operate a brake lever cleanly, and expect leather to break in and mould to your hands over the first few weeks.

No single glove does everything well. Waterproof membranes and insulation inevitably cost some lever feel, while ventilated summer gloves are useless in January. Most riders who ride year round end up with two pairs, a vented summer glove and an insulated waterproof winter glove, which also lets one pair dry out while the other works.

For cold hands on longer winter rides, heated gloves are a genuine solution rather than a gimmick, at a price. Battery-powered pairs give a couple of hours of warmth, while wired versions run off the bike.

Entry-level certified gloves start around £30 to £60, solid mid-range pairs run roughly £60 to £120, and premium race gauntlets and heated gloves go well beyond that. Prioritise the certification level, knuckle and palm protection and fit before brand names: a well-fitting Level 1 KP glove protects better in practice than an ill-fitting premium one.