Big Bikes

Product Review:
Gore Bike Wear Cross Gloves

Last year we brought in Gore Bike Wear products. I've been rocking the Alp-X jacket for over a season now and couldn't be more thrilled. OK, that's a lie. No matter how many times I tell the Alp-X jacket to make me nachos, it invariably refuses. Silently. It just stares at me. But I can see in its eyes (or maybe its zipper) that it is saying "make your own damn nachos."




I recently picked up a pair of the Gore Cross Gloves. Things I have noticed:

1. They aren't much good below 30°, but with a decent liner that issue could be resolved.
   
   
2. If you get the inside wet, you are screwed. The inner liner gets all bunched up and buggered, and getting your fingers back where they belong becomes a nightmare.
   
   
3. They really are wicked, wicked waterproof (see below, seriously, they are that waterproof)
   
   

I think they'll be just the thing for iffy weather winter rides. There is almost no point in venturing out on a winter ride in New England without waterproof gear. If it's going to be warm, if it's going to have some sort of wind stop element, why not make it waterproof? Well because it's really expensive, that's why.

Go on one wet winter ride where your hands take the form of useless ice flippers that can't operate an STI shifter and you won't think seventy bucks for a pair of gloves is exorbitant at all.



I am planning a more demanding battery of tests. With climate change, who knows when it might start raining really, really hot water? We need to know if Gore gloves can withstand such extraordinary elements.




And what if you were riding in a rainstorm...in a tornado, and the water was swirling around and around the glove? I have devised a way of testing the Gore gloves performance in such a scenario.



I will share the results of those tests at later date.