Gloves with knuckle protection are never a bad idea when you combine high speed, wide handlebars and narrow sections of trail. However, most DH/ FR gloves I’ve run really haven’t been my favorite gloves. Although the protection is a great idea, out of the gaggle of gloves I own, only one or two get to my regular rotation. The main reason: most of them just aren’t that comfortable.
When the Gunner glove came into my possession and I tried them on, I was pretty stoked with the dialed fit. Making a fist? No problem. Riding with my finger out covering the brake on manuals? Good there too. Jett got the carbon fiber protection right with this glove. Like my moto gloves, the protective element isn’t completely attached to the section on the top of your hand. Instead, the protective carbon section is attached at the fingers, while the carbon section moves around freely. Since it floats over the mesh section on the top, it lacks that tight feeling many other protective gloves have.
Jett Gunner Gloves
Besides the dialed fit and ample protective qualities, the rest of the glove is assembled with a clarino leather palm, with perforated leather everywhere else. The fingers have an additional carbon bits for protection, and are pre-shaped to aid in gripping the bars. A hook and loop closure keeps the glove secure on your hand. On my first ride with the gloves I managed to smack my fingers on a bush while cornering. My finger took the impact right between the protective bits and still stung quite a bit, but I didn’t sustain a scratch.
The downsides to the additional protection is the amount of sweating your hand will do on hot days. This is fairly typical for any type of gear that offers this sort of additional protection, even with the ventilation added to the glove. While on the subject of ventilation, the perforations on the palm area have me a bit concerned about longevity, as this is typically the first place my gloves tend to fail, but overall this is a bad-ass glove at a reasonable price point for these sorts of features. Did we mention these gloves look bad-ass? Batman would totally rock these things. If you’re a super hero patroling the streets at night, or you need some gloves to aid in your survival in the zombie apocalypse, you’ve found your glove.
MSRP puts this glove at around $55.
