Since I have been reading a lot about mountain biking online recently, I decided to go through some forums and create a list of essential supplies for myself. During my research, I read a few things about mountain bike gloves, and did some research to find out if I should wear them on my first trip.
Should I wear mountain biking gloves? Mountain biking gloves are a necessary component of any biking gear ensemble. Similar to how you need a helmet to protect your head, you must protect your hands with special gloves.
Your hands will be gripping the rough handlebars of your bike for long periods of time and experiencing heavy friction, especially during those steep climbs that require you to push your body weight forward. Along with the risk of falls and injury, this is the main reason why biking glove are required for the best results.
When it comes to climbing up a steep and rocky terrain while steering the handlebars of your trusted mountain bike, a quality pair of gloves is one of the most important pieces of equipment that you can have on your side. Gloves serve a variety of purposes to a mountain biker, from comfort to safety.
If you are considering getting into the sport of mountain biking, there is no question that you will need a reliable pair of biking gloves. Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about this topic, from the uses of mountain bike gloves to why you need them and which ones to buy.
Should I Wear Mountain Bike Gloves?
Mountain biking is an exciting outdoor activity that involves a lot of physical challenges while riding. With the potential to scale thousands of miles of elevation on the average mountain biking trail, there is no question of what it takes to get behind the wheel and take it to the top.
When mountain biking gear is brought up, most people will immediately think of the mountain bike and a helmet as the bare necessities. Of course, if you have ever seen a mountain biker on a trail, you might have noticed the special outfit, glasses or goggles, gloves, and all of that other advanced gear.
While you might assume that these additional pieces are just extras, they are actually very important components to any successful mountain bike ride, including the mountain bike gloves.
Mountain bike gloves are increasingly importatnt due to the safety features that they offer. In short, you do need mountain biking gloves for any kind of mountain biking activity, they are a necessity when it comes to your essential gear.
In this seciton, we will be going over the features of mountain bike gloves and why they are important to wear on your journey. Take a look at the list down below to find out some of the characteristics of this equipment and why you will need it on your own mountain biking trip.
Mountain Bike Gloves:
- Absorbent materials that eliminate sweat
- Increase the grip on the handles
- Prevent numb hands by protecting from vibrations
- Prevent blisters and calluses from forming on hands
- Comfort during rides
- Extra padding in case of a fall
- Cloth section for wiping sweat
Mountain bike gloves, first and foremost, are made of special absorbent materials that eliminate sweat on the hands. When you are moving along a mountain biking trail, especially on a hot day, you will begin to sweat on your body and hands.
This is inevitable due to all of the physical activity that you must perform in order to operate your mountain bike, and sweaty hands are an effect of this, which will happen with or without the gloves.
If you were to ride your mountain bike without gloves and your hands began to sweat, you would start to lose your grip on the handlebars. This will happen because the handles are usually made of a rubber material that can get slippery when it is wet.
This is not to say that the handles of a mountain bike do not provide enough grip. In fact, there are special grooves in this material that will help you to hold on tight. However, when the ride has lasted for a longer period of time and you begin to sweat, the friction of the handlebars will not be able to hold up.
This is where the mountain biking gloves come in. With the absorbent materials inside of the gloves, the sweat from your hands will never soak through them and exit toward the actual bike handles.
Instead, you will be able to use the outside of your gloves in order to grip the surface of the handles, with no risk of them slipping off, causing crashes or injuries.
In fact, the mountain biking gloves will actually increase your grip on the handles. Aside from just being able to hold on with another dry surface, the materials of the glove and the handle bars will work against each other to provide even more friction than just your hand would in the same position.
In addition to just helping you grip onto the handle bars, mountain biking gloves have another special feature that is very helpful during and after the ride.
All of the experienced mountain bikers know about the phenomena of numb hands after riding a mountain bike for a long period of time. During a mountain biking climb, the vibrations that occur under the tires will automatically travel up through the frame of the bike, ending up in the handles.
When you are holding on in this area, these vibrations will come in contact with your hands, consequently giving you the sensation of numbness throughout your hands, wrists, and forearms.
This is due to the direct contact with a few specific nerves in the fingers and hands that travel upward toward the elbow. While this issue can usually be fixed by adjusting to the proper biking form, bikers can still sometimes be at risk for getting this numb hand feeling, which will usually last for some time even after the ride has concluded.
In order to prevent this from happening at all, you can find a nice pair of mountain biking gloves that have some kind of padding on the palms. This will help to block out any vibrations that might occur and prevent any kind of numbness.
Along with the prevention of numb hands, mountain bike gloves will act as a shield between your fingers and hands and the actual handle bar. If you were to ride for hours without using any gloves, you might start to form blisters and calluses on the surface of your hands.
However, when you use a quality pair of mountain bike gloves to come in between the skin and the rubber on the handles, you will be able to finish your ride without damaging the texture of your palms.
Just simply remove your protective gloves when you are done riding and notice that your hands are in the great condition that you started with.
This reason for wearing mountain biking gloves directly correlates to the comfort that you will feel during your ride. As mentioned previously, some mountain biking gloves can come with special padding that is usually focused around the finger and palm area.
Not only does this protect against painful vibrations, but it can also just make the ride a lot more comfortable overall. When you are moving on a mountain bike, it will require you to shift a lot of your weight forward, which will consequently fall onto the palms of your hands.
This amount of pressure can become a lot on your hands after a while, which is why you should choose to put an extra cushion in between you and your bike for added protection.
The extra padding will come in handy during your actual ride when you are putting weight onto your palms, but it will also be helpful in the event that you ever got into a crash.
While it is never pleasant to get into a mountain biking crash, and you should never purposefully try to fall with the use of mountain bike gloves, they can help a little bit if you ever get into a tricky situation.
When we crash or fall in any circumstance, it is basic human instinct to reach out in front of ourselves and try to lessen the impact with our hands. When you wear padded mountain bike gloves, there will be a little bit of extra room to break your fall than if you were riding with bear hands.
Even though the cushioning on mountain biking gloves is very thin and you might not even be able to tell the difference yourself, it will assist in some way when you get into any kind of accident.
If anything, the skin of your hands will be protected from the surfaces that you fall on. For example, if your bike topples over into a sharp, rocky terrain and you reach out to break your own fall, your mountain biking gloves might not protect you from the overall impact and some of the pain.
However, your hands would come out unscathed from the sharp rocks that were surrounding you, even if the fall itself was painful. The same thing goes for when you need to recover your bike from these types of areas.
If you have to pick up your bike from the ground where there are a lot of pointy twigs or sharp rocks, you can freely maneuver your hands in order to recover it, without having to worry about getting scraped or cut in the process.
Last but certainly not least, mountain biking gloves have one more special feature that is convenient for the very active mountain bikers. When it comes to scaling the side of a mountain thousands of feet up in to the air, it becomes increasingly important to be as hands-free as possible during your climb.
Most mountain bikers will use special goggles that will suction to their faces in order to avoid any adjustments or anything slipping off the bridge of their nose. In addition, it is a staple in the mountain biking community to have hydration backpacks that are connected to a mouthpiece for drinking water.
The reason for both of these components is the convenience and ease of use while you are focusing on the rigorous task of mountain biking. Just like you can’t be bothered to take a sip from your water bottle while you are climbing uphill, you won’t be able to pull out a towel to wipe your sweat, or it is not very likely that you will, at least.
Mountain biking is all about limiting the things that you have to do in order to take care of yourself and putting all of your power, focus, and energy into making it to the top of the climb that you have in front of you.
This is why the outer material of the mountain biking gloves will be so helpful to you in these circumstances, even more so when the weather is hot and you are completing an extended mountain biking journey.
The outside of mountain biking gloves are usually put together with a section of a softer cloth material. This cloth material can be found on the top of both hands, and can be used to wipe sweat as you are riding.
So, instead of trying to focus on pulling out a towel that will block your path, or even stopping to take care of your issue, you can raise one of your hands quickly and wipe your sweat away with the back of just one hand.
The same process also goes for wiping your nose quickly as you are riding. While in the midst of a climb, no mountain biker wants to have to stop their momentum for something as small as this, but these problems can become a major distraction if they are not taken care of promptly.
All in all, mountain biking gloves are absolutely necessary for any kind of mountain biking adventure. You need the gloves to be able to safely hold on to the handle bars, as well as prevent any hand injuries and experience the most comfortable ride.
The Top 5 Mountain Biking Gloves
Now that we have covered everything that you needed to know about mountain biking gloves and the necessity of their use, you are probably wondering where you can purchase a pair for your own mountain biking ensemble.
To make your search for the perfect pair of mountain biking gloves even more seamless, we will be going over a list of the top 5 mountain biking gloves that are available on the market. When you choose any one of the gloves on this list, you will not be disappointed in terms of comfort, quality, and longevity.
Take a look at the list down below to find some of the top picks for mountain biking gloves, along with a brief description of each as a quick reference.
Top 5 Mountain Biking Gloves:
1. Fox Men’s Ranger MTB Gloves $46
These mountain biking gloves are great for riding your bike on a hot day. This is due to the fact that they are made of a very breathable material that will allow the sweat on your hands to ventilate.
2. Alpinestarts Moab MTB Gloves $30
These gloves are some of the most comfortable options on this list. With extraneous amounts of padding on the palms, these gloves are ideal for those all day mountain biking journeys where you can’t afford to deal with tired hands.
3. Giro Blaze Mountain Biking Gloves $68
The Giro Blaze Mountain Biking gloves are the best choice for winter mountain biking riders. They can withstand extreme levels of cold, however, they will not be able to hold up in sub-sub-freezing temperatures. The material is a synthetic leather on the palm, with an increased amount of grip throughout the entire ride.
4. Leatt DBX 4.0 Lite Adult BMX Bike Gloves $50
This pair of mountain biking gloves is one of the more protective options. If you frequently suffer with numb hands after booking it downhill behind the handlebars of your mountain bike, you might want to check these out. With a palm made of a nano-grip material, you will be both secure and protected.
5. Troy Lee Designs Moto/Mountain Bike Gloves $30
The Troy Lee Designs Moto/Mountain Bike Gloves are a fan favorite among avid mountain bikers. Made of a spandex material, they are lightweight yet vey versatile for whatever you need them for. These gloves will be ideal for you if you are looking for protection to the bottoms of your hands rather than the tops.
To conclude, mountain biking gloves are a must-have for any kind of mountain biking. While it is true that there are a variety of reasons why many mountain bikers might seek them out, they are needed by everyone for a safe and comfortable ride.