Cycling gloves are a bit divisive: There are plenty of people who won’t leave home without them, and I’d say an equal amount of riders who just don’t bother with them, or who consider them an extra but not a necessity. But much like the PSA I gave a few years ago about making sure you have bar end plugs on your mountain bike, they’re the type of thing you don’t realize matters a lot until it matters a lot.
In the case of the bar end plug, it took getting a massive scrape across my sternum after an incredibly minor topple-over incident to alert me to the fact that yes, bar end plugs are VERY important. (When I shared that, I got a lot of way worse horror stories about near-death experiences thanks to a missing bar end plug and a bar to the belly. And a lot of photos sent my way. Yikes.)
Anyway: Gloves on hot days and in the summer weather not only offer UPF protection from the sun and some vibration dampening for your ride, they’re an important tool when it comes to staying safe. And that was a reminder that Peter had this week when he had a minor MTB crash on the day (of course) he forgot his gloves.
The thing with gloves is that they protect a VERY important part of your body—your palms. It only takes one crash where you slice your palm open before you notice that a) it bleeds. A lot. and b) it is very slow to heal because you use your hands quite a bit and it is really, really hard to avoid smacking your palm against things throughout the day. Crashing with gloves on can make a crash go from catastrophic to a bit more minor, make it easier to get yourself out of the woods if you do crash and hit your hands, and can really make your work week a lot easier. Trust me: Trying to type at the computer (or train normally) with road rash or a gash on your hand is not an easy feat!
Gloves are the simplest way to keep your hands a bit safer in case of a crash, and may even save you from crashing on a hot day, since unlike sweaty palms that can get slippery, gloves stay in place on the bars. They’re the kind of minor addition to your cycling wardrobe that you may not think about often, but really can make a difference.
Cycling isn’t without risk. We all know that. But these small ways to mitigate risk really matter.
For inexpensive glove options, Rockbros tend to be pretty solid—we’ve gotten their glasses in the past and been happy with them! Castelli also has a ton of options at decent price points.
