ICON ARC Lightweight Street Gloves by Thomas Day I don’t have normal hands. My wife calls my foreleg appendages “evolved paws.” I prefer “mitts,” but at least my fingers aren’t webbed. The problem is that my fingers are short, my palms are large, and the whole mess is freaking thick. That means I have a terrible time finding riding gloves that fit and are comfortable. For years, I bought Justin goatskin work gloves, since they are tough, fairly comfortable, and cheap. My habit has been to wet the Justins in warm water, spend a day working in the yard and drying the gloves, followed by seriously working neatsfoot oil into the leather like a good baseball glove, all without removing the gloves for several hours. I’ve been doing this since sometime in the 1970s and the gloves and the procedure have served me well, including protecting my mitts in off-road crash situations.
Like my Justin work gloves, the “chassis” of the ARC gloves is made from tough and flexible goatskin. ICON has added gel pads in the palm, which completely eliminated the blood-loss tingling I often experience after a long ride. The gel pads add some stickiness to the palm of the gloves, improving grip in the palm. The knuckle panel is expandable, allowing unimpeded bend to your grip on the bars and providing protection where it sometimes matters. The gussets between the fingers breathe, and that helps keep the temperature down inside the gloves. Cosmetically, the ARC gloves come in a variety of colors: black, blue, red, white, and natural tan. I went for natural tan and I’m sure using my native fashion sense, I’m hipper looking now than when I was wearing the natural leather Justin goatskins. After a few hundred on-and-off cycles and a couple thousand miles wearing the ARC’s, I’m still impressed. I figured that the cloth I tug on to get the gloves over my paws would separate and disfigure my expensive finger protection. It hasn’t. I expected the leather to sag out and become less form-fitting. It hasn’t. I applied Nikwax waterproofing treatment, which made the ARC’s nearly watertight. Oddly, they still look pretty good. I’m cheap, so $60 for a pair of gloves seems expensive. Since they were a rare fit I bought them anyway. I’ve suffered no buyer’s remorse. The Icon ARCs are available locally from Bob’s Cycle Supply. M.M.M. Visit the Comments Page to post a comment about this story. |
*This article was originally published in the May 2009 issue.
When I’m in my favorite local bike shop, occasionally I take to trying on the latest riding gloves, fully expecting to be disappointed. I haven’t had my expectations disrupted for decades. Repeating that habit while a friend shopped for riding gear, I stumbled on the ICON ARC gloves. To my surprise, they fit perfectly (almost “like a glove”), and were comfortable from the moment I pulled them on. At first, I was sure this wouldn’t be the case, because the wrist is a tight fit, requiring some effort to pull the gloves over the meat of my hand. Once I was past that hurdle, I found the gloves to be flexible, form-fitting, and insanely comfortable. They will definitely stay on my hands in a crash.