When I look at my girlfriend's shoe collection, I think to myself 'what could she possibly need all those for' and yet, I have over 30 pairs of motorcycle gloves.
There are gloves for riding on track, wet weather, racing, freezing weather, motocross, sunday blasts, supermoto. Do I need to justify it to you? Of course not, you get the picture.
However, in my box of gloves I was missing a pair of no-nonsense gloves for riding around town. You think I'm being picky but I'm really anal when it comes to feel; I met a World Superbike rider who crashed in warm-up, didn't have spare gloves and bunged on his mates all-weather gloves, went out and put it on the second row. I was astounded, I thought that they of all people would want precision, fit and feel.
I need feel and hate chunky gloves for summer riding - it feels like I'm wearing boxing gloves. However, I accept that in winter, bulk means your fingers won't actually drop off at the end of a ride.
So I got hold of a pair of Alpinestars Hero gloves. They're about as no-nonsense as it gets; there's no armour, just a bit of foam padding across the knuckle and the leather is as thin and supple as it gets.
Sure you could say why bother with gloves at all but I don't want calluses and black marks from my grips. In a big off they're not going to be as good as full-on sports gloves but the way I see it, when I'm riding around town in the summer, I want small lightweight gloves that are so comfy you can hardly feel they're there and when you park up you can stash them in your back pocket. I'm not worried about knuckle armour, wrist straps and bridged fingers because 99.99% of the time I'm riding, not crashing.
So when my girlfriend wants another pair of shoes, I guess I've got to accept that there's some weird logic behind it and that she isn't just buying them for the sake of it..
The Alpinestars Hero gloves retail for £34.99 but you can find them online for around £30.
See this link for more info: Alpinestars Hero Glove.
