Bell Powersports Roadie Full Finger Motorcycle Glove

When I lost the motorcycle gloves I have had for over a year (along with a great leather jacket, at San Francisco Airport – D’Oh!) I needed a replacement pair. I knew and thought highly of the Bell Motorsports name and so thought their gloves should be pretty good.

Alas, I was in for a bit of disappointment. While the gloves per se are fine – the leather is soft enough, the gloves offer good protection, etc., the velcro closure at each wrist is just poorly designed. Specifically, the leather strip sewn at the wrist is a little too short, just enough so that when I put the glove on my hand the wrist expands to the point where the leather strip falls out of the metal D ring through which it must pass to fold over and “latch” to itself. This becomes quite annoying, particularly when donning the second glove, as at that point I must use my already-gloved hand to fumble with the leather strap and insert it into the D ring.

The frustrating thing is if the manufacturer had simply made these leather strips all of 1/2 an inch longer, the problem would likely not exist. Seems to me to have been a design decision that’s “penny wise” (save a tiny length of leather) and “pound foolish” (aggravate the customer, this one at least, to never purchase a Bell product again).

I’ve used these real leather gloves for riding for over 3 years now. You only get one year out of them, daily riding, since the leather will get hard and crack. But that is all I expected. I used to buy them at Walmart, but they don’t carry them anymore, so I found them with Amazon. I’m glad to use a proven riding glove.

Live to Ride, Ride to Live