Bike Gloves

Motorcycle gloves help protect your hands and digits if you eat it off your bike. Beyond protection, a great motorcycle glove needs to be easy to pull on and remove. The shape is articulated for your hand, so you don’t need to work as hard when gripping the handlebar or working the clutch and brake lever. Gloves provide armoring on your knuckles, back of the hand, and palms, but that also doesn’t hinder dexterity. 

Throughout testing, we rode different bikes through a variety of terrain and in a broad range of temperatures and weather. That meant riding in the rain, which was key for evaluating the waterproofness and breathability of pairs. We also jetted at highway speeds in hotter and colder conditions. 

To understand the finer points of glove construction, features, safety, and different kinds of motorcycle gloves check out our comprehensive buyers guide, FAQ, and comparison chart lower in the article. Otherwise, dig into the highlight reel of our top picks. 

Motorcycle Gloves Comparison Chart

Scroll right to view all of the columns: Price, Materials, Protection, Best Use.

How We Tested Motorcycle Gloves

A variety of motorcycle gloves exist. Among all the categories, you’ll find gloves tailored to street, race, dirt, touring, sport, and adventure.

Our lead GearJunkie tester for this guide, Michael Frank, hammered through motorcycle gloves for a full riding season in addition to decades of experience as a rider. He toured in the rain, bombed through mud, took motorcycles off-road, and covered hundreds of miles of pavement on both coasts and across the country.

We tested models side by side on long rides. And our testers rode in a variety of circumstances: commuting in traffic, zipping along the Interstate at 70 mph, and doing quick grocery store runs.

The aim was to see how well each glove adapted to different types of riding and conditions. We measured how comfy they were, and how easily they could operate touchscreens. We also tested the functionality with all the tasks you need to do with gloves on: open/close visors and helmet vents, engage clutch levers, feather brakes, and zip/unzip jacket pits and pockets.

Above all, dexterity is a primary metric of a decent motorcycle glove. You also want excellent protection and great tactile for grip and bar feel.

Why You Should Trust Us

Our testers didn’t crash to evaluate palm sliders or take rocks to the knuckles. But our lead tester did get pegged in the hand by plenty of bugs and more than one bee. (Sorry to all the bees.) We look for gloves with palm sliders, armor, and safety certifications.

Depending on your riding style, you might want some other specific features, but these are the ones that made the cut. 

Parts of Motorcycle Gloves

Motorcycle gloves all have similar design details but use different materials and feel unique glove to glove. Here’s a quick overview of those elements.

Closure System

The wrist strap closure is important on motorcycle gloves. The EU’s CE Level 1 testing mandates that gloves are evaluated for how well the wrist straps work.

Gloves have more than one point of closure. There needs to be a strong initial clasp, which is typically a hook-and-loop fastener. Then the secondary closure fastens around the wrist.

Gauntlet styles reach further past the wrist and up the forearm, and they also secure at both the wrist and the arm.

We do like gauntlet styles, such as the Five RFX WP, because the setup is like wearing both a belt and suspenders. The glove stays put around the wrist and also stays put up the sleeve of your jacket. The overall fit is also influenced by the cuff of your jacket, and if the sleeve opens wide enough to fit over the gauntlet.  

Armor Protection and Padding

Unlike motorcycle boots, armored gloves are pretty lightweight. At a minimum, you’ll want protection on your knuckles and a broad palm slider. Also, consider having armor across the back of your hand.

A palm slider protects your wrist if you fall because the pad dissipates force. Armor across the knuckles and even down the fingers helps protect your hand against rocks that kick up from car tires. Those features are also a shield against the weight and heat of your bike, and can help preserve your hand from debris or bugs you hit along the way.

For really great armoring, check out the REV’IT! Sand 4 motorcycle gloves.

Touchscreen Capability

Touchscreen capability is a great addition for a motorcycle glove. With this technology, you won’t need to remove a glove to tap on a phone or another touchscreen on your motorcycle when you’re navigating or communicating. When you don’t need to remove a glove, that’ll help reduce hand fatigue, especially on a long or turn-intensive route.

Materials

Motorcycle gloves need to be made with textiles that are malleable, so they stretch over your hands and fit well between and around your digits. In contrast, the armor used on the glove should be stalwart and rather stagnant. The interface between the against-skin material and the armor should be seamless and strong. Ultimately, you don’t want the armor to inhibit motion. A great example of a glove that achieves these points is the Dainese Carbon 4 Short, which feels like an extension of your body.

Cheaper gloves tend to compromise the type of material and the overall construction, which can feel a bit crude. The result of a poorly crafted glove is more fatigue, finger casings that are too tight, and a lack of stretch.

A very thin, lightweight glove, such as the KLIM Dakar Pro, is built to maximum feel and a connection to your handlebar. Generally, the fingers are made to be roomier, too.

The majority of well-made motorcycle gloves incorporate goatskin leather for the entire body or the palms. Goatskin leather transmits grip and touch more effectively than cowhide leather, we’ve found. Synthetic leather offers certain advantages, such as water shedding. Often, carbon fiber is utilized across knuckles for textile strength and durability.

Waterproofing

One high-tier waterproof-breathable glove on this list is the Alpinestars Bogota Drystar XF and the other is the Five RFX WP. Both of these moto gloves have kept our hands reasonably dry through several seasons of test rides. In the nastiest conditions, neither construction is totally perfect and eventually both wetted out leaving the interior a tad damp, in our experience. Ultimately, the waterproofing still kept our hands from getting drenched and cold.

It’s also good to have a second pair of gloves — or even a backup pair of light or heavy mittens — in your tail bag for the worst-case scenario.

You’ll want a pair of waterproof gloves in your kit that will help you stay warm if not dry. Wet hands can be chilled by the wind. A saturated leather glove also gets heavy, making movements more sluggish and sloppy, which becomes a safety hazard.  

Beyond waterproofing, the interior of a glove can be lined for additional warmth or windproofness, as well. You can also invest in a removal thermal liner or heated liner.

If you’re going to encounter rainy weather on your rides, it pays to have a pair of waterproof gloves.

Palm Slider: Motorcycle Gloves

In our opinion, there’s one piece of armor on motorcycle gloves that matters most: The palm slider.

When you fall, it can be instinctive to put your hands out to protect yourself. A palm slider dissipates the energy of the fall by sliding along the ground and sending that force through your wrist and arm.

Safety Certifications: CE Level 1 Testing

All of the selected motorcycle gloves in our guide carry a CE Level 1 rating for protection. CE stands for Conformité Européenne, which is French for European Conformity. A CE Level 2 rating is typically found on moto gloves for racing, which we don’t cover here. According to the European Union, a Level 2 label for gloves carries a fairly consequential weight and lack of ergonomics to achieve that rating. So, it’s not ideal to seek out a glove in that category for everyday or adventure use.

Throughout testing, the EU makes sure the glove offers adequate ease of movement to easily pull a clutch lever, modulate the front brake, and comfortably grip the bar. 

Other tests measure the glove’s closure system. There needs to be a strong initial clasp, which is typically a hook-and-loop fastener. Then the main closure needs to function (the part that is fastened around the wrist).

The fingers of the glove are placed in a device that pulls against the wrist material, which yanks at 25 Newtons. That’s the equivalent of the amount of force it would take to move 55 pounds one square-meter per second. The test to meet the Level 2 rating is double that amount of force. Throughout the test, the glove cannot rip off the device.

Each glove’s materials are measured for tear and abrasion resistance. For adequate tear resistance, a Level 1 label is achieved if the textile can withstand 10 Newtons of force. To test for abrasion, the fabric is sanded with 180 grit sandpaper on the equivalent of a belt sander to emulate a slide and needs to withstand at least three seconds to score a Level 1.  

The protection zones — like the knuckle protectors and the palm slider — are also tested. A 5.5-pound weight is dropped on the glove’s protection zones to simulate a ground strike, to make sure they can withstand the hit.

FAQ

Motorcycle gloves help to prevent sweat and fatigue, which helps you to maintain your grip on the handlebar.

Gloves built for moto rides will protect you from road debris, weather, sunburn, bugs, the heat and impact of handling the hog, and from scraping against the pavement if you were to crash.

Look for a pair of motorcycle gloves that are hitting a safety benchmark with the CE Level 1 certification. A tag inside the glove will shows this label. Online stores and the manufacturers also list this information online.

Then consider the type of riding you do. If you ride in the rain, you need gloves that are waterproof and breathable with Gore-Tex. You could also consider a glove built with a windproof liner, removable thermal liner, or a heated glove.

If you intend to ride off-road on an ADV bike look for a touring glove. If you plan on riding off-road on a smaller 250cc dirt bike look for a lightweight, minimal, and stretchy glove with armor at the palm and knuckles.

You’ll also want to consider your preferred cuff length — wrist or gauntlet — and how that cuff interfaces with your motorcycle jacket.

The best motorcycle gloves use a mix of materials to achieve different levels of mobility, protection, and comfort.

Goatskin leather palms offer excellent grip. Synthetic suede tends to resist moisture buildup. Carbon fiber and kevlar reinforcements offer better slide and armor protection.

You might want a moto glove that has insulation for all-weather riding. You could also get a glove with a waterproof-breathable membrane for stormy, ready-to-ride-through-anything conditions.