When riding a bike, some pieces of gear receive more love and attention than others. While many studies, laws, and riders agree that a helmet is essential, not everybody believes items like motorcycle gloves are similarly important.
Here are the reasons why motorcycle gloves are indispensable for responsible riding.
Which Types of Motorcycle Clothing & Gear are Necessary?
It is a heated debate between different motorcycle riders about which pieces of gear are really necessary, and which can be left at home. These types of arguments often arise about motorcycle helmets. They are legal requirements in many countries, and some riders feel patronized by being forced to wear them.
For these people, the discomfort caused by the helmet is not worth the level of protection it provides. Some of them consider helmets dangerous or unnecessary entirely, while others leave them at home when the ride is short, or the weather is hot.
The same behavior applies to motor gloves. Since they do not protect a critical organ, like our brain, there are even larger groups of people who have no problem sitting on their bikes without a protective glove.
Others believe that a regular leather glove is protection enough and see their main benefit in protection from the airflow and cold.
However, there are several benefits to a protective professional motorcycle glove, which should make them more mandatory in many riders’ eyes.
Benefits of Motorcycle Gloves
Like most protective motorcycle clothing, motorcycle gloves have multiple purposes during a motorcycle ride. They can be broken down into
- factors, that protect during an accident, and
- factors, that help prevent accidents.
Protection in Accidents
When we end up in an accident, countless things can happen to our bodies that will endanger our life and health. Even during comparatively mild crashes, injuries, and forces like
- road rash,
- impacts, or
- small cuts
can cause painful and long-lasting health problems that might take a long time to recover from.
The gloves have reinforced areas and armor plates over critical spots. These vulnerable parts, like knuckles and our wrists, can easily break, twist, or tear with the force of an impact.
➔ That’s why a regular glove, even if it protects from the weather, is not suitable for protective motorcycle gear standards.
While a hand injury will not be fatal, it still affects an important part of our body that we need to function in our daily life. Broken bones and other injuries in our hands can be connected to notoriously long phases of physical therapy and recovery times and might not lead to the same functionality as before the accident.
The armor plates, padding materials, and abrasion-resistant textiles help us protect ourselves from severe injuries.
Protection From Accidents
Motorcycle gloves can be used as a preventative measure for motorcycle accidents. Their helpful features lead to
- higher comfort,
- longer lasting concentration and reaction speed,
- continuous flexibility, as well as
- better grip and control of the bike.
The textile, typically leather or similarly tough synthetic fabrics, covers our hands and protects them from rain, cold, airflow, and UV rays.
The haptic surface of the fabric can also help us to have a better grip on the bike and control it more easily.
Additional padding at the base of the hand has multiple helpful benefits. When we fall, we typically try to catch ourselves with the palms of our hands. It pays off if these are specially protected from impacts and injuries.
Similarly, the padding acts as a layer to lessen the bike’s vibrations and its effect on our hands. This way, we can prevent our hands from becoming numb over time.
These characteristics keep the rider comfortable and their fingers nimble. The lack of discomfort makes it easier for them to concentrate on the road for longer times and keep the appropriate reaction speed necessary to reduce the risk of motorcycle accidents.
Conclusion
Our hands are important tools in our daily life. Injuries, like broken bones or tears, can easily lead to long phases of physical therapy and might cause long-lasting impediments.
The risk of injuries to our hands can be reduced by wearing appropriate protective motorcycle gloves made from abrasion-resistant materials, armor, and padding. They keep the wearer comfortable, nimble, and concentrated for longer periods of time and can help limit the chance of an accident occurring in the first place. In an accident, the armor, tough textiles, and padding help reduce the severity of injuries.
