Best Cycling Gloves: Protect Your Mitts!

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Your cycling gloves may be the smallest item in your cycling wardrobe, but they have a vital role to play in helping you cycle in comfort for longer.

In winter, you’re unlikely to consider leaving the house for a ride without pulling on a pair of warm gloves. Your hands can quickly get cold and trying to shift gears and operate brake levers with numb fingers isn’t anyone’s idea of fun, whether it’s from hand fatigue or the elements.

But in summer, when temperatures are balmy or even hot, you may be tempted to leave your gloves at home. Rookie error… You see, gloves aren’t just designed to keep your hands warm. They wick away sweat and improve your grip on the bars, as well as cushioning your palms to help prevent chafing. And if you do take an unexpected tumble, they’ll protect your hands from grit rash.

Cycling gloves are a personal choice. What fits one person may not suit another. But with that in mind, we’ve rounded up ten of the best cycling gloves on the market.

Up Front Best Cycling Gloves

  1. Louis Garneau Vorttice Glove: Best Overall
  2. Pearly Izumi Pro Aero Gloves: Best for Road Cycling on a Hot Weather
  3. Pearl Izumi Select Gloves: Best for Hand Numbness
  4. INBIKE 5mm Gel Padded Cycling Gloves: Budget Pick
  5. Scott Endurance SF Glove: Best for Long Rides
  6. Sportful R&D Cima Gloves: Best Summer Cycling Gloves
  7. Leatt DBX 4.0 Lite: Best Mountain Biking Gloves
  8. Castelli Estremo Gloves: Best Winter Cycling Gloves
  9. Giro Women’s Tessa Glove: Best Women-Specific Cycling Gloves
  10. Louis Garneau Rafale 2 Glove: Best for Cool Weather riding

Our Favorite Road Cycling Gloves

Best OverallLouis Garneau Vorttice Glove: Perfect for racing and hot weather rides, this lightweight glove is designed to keep your hands cool and glued to the handlebars.

Our Pick
Go with the Vorttice Glove

Want to forget you are wearing a glove? That's how these Vorttice gloves feel. Lightweight and aerodynamic, these are the BEST cycling gloves I recommend to friends.

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Budget pick – INBIKE 5mm Gel Padded Gloves: A great value option with tons of padding to help relieve pressure on your nerves and reduce numbness.

INBIKE Cycling Gloves | Amazon

Extra padding with thickened EVA cycling gloves at palm part, super shock absorption, pain and fatigue relieving, guaranteeing men or women cyclers' riding more relaxed and easy.

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Cycling Gloves: What To Look For

While choosing a pair of cycling gloves isn’t as complicated as buying cycling shoes, pedals or bike computers, there are still a few things you’ll want to consider when picking your perfect glove:

Full finger or fingerless gloves: most road cyclists prefer fingerless cycling gloves with full finger gloves being reserved for cold weather use. When mountain biking it’s a different story as your gloves need to provide protection from whipping branches and rocky ground.

Fit: you’re looking for a comfortable, close fit when buying cycling gloves. You don’t want the gloves slipping about on your hands but if they’re too tight then they may become uncomfortable if your fingers swell in the heat and could impede blood circulation.

Padding: padded palms can help relieve the pressure on your ulnar and median nerves and prevent rubbing. Many gloves use gel inserts, but these don’t suit everyone – some people find they make numbness problems worse, not better.

Breathability: typically the upper part of cycling gloves is made from a lightweight mesh or moisture-wicking fabric to wick away sweat and keep your hands cool.

Grip: most gloves have a leather or synthetic palm to improve grip. Full finger gloves often feature silicone grippers on the fingers to help with gear shifting and gripping brake levers.

Best Road Cycling Gloves

Louis Garneau Vorttice Glove

light-handed

The Vorticce glove is designed for racing, with a unique aerodynamic design, SpeedTech fabric, and elongated seamless cuffs. They have a minimal amount of bio gel padding that’s just enough for comfort. The best thing about these gloves is that they fit, well, like a glove (or a bike glove). After a few miles, you’ll forget you’re wearing them at all.

Our Pick
Go with the Vorttice Glove

Want to forget you are wearing a glove? That's how these Vorttice gloves feel. Lightweight and aerodynamic, these are the BEST cycling gloves I recommend to friends.

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We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Pearl Izumi Pro Aero Gloves

The Pro Aero gloves have everything you need in a racing glove and nothing more. There’s a soft Clarino synthetic leather palm for grip, a stretchy synthetic upper that’s designed to wick away sweat and reduce drag, and a thumb wipe. When it comes to leaving things out, there are two diversions from typical glove design: no fastening strap and no padding.

The lack of padding won’t suit everyone, but it improves the security and grip on your handlebars and riders who find gel pads hinder more than they help may well prefer this style of glove. And with no hook and loop straps to get caught on your clothing, they’re easy to throw in the washing machine at the end of the ride.

PEARL IZUMI Pro Aero Glove | Amazon

Wind-cheating fabric and a second-skin fit are the hallmarks of these high performance gloves designed for the speed obsessed.

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Best Cycling Gloves for Hand Numbness

Tingling or numbness in the hand is a common complaint among cyclists. If you’re feeling symptoms mainly in your ring and little finger and the outer side of your hand, then it’s likely to be caused by either compression or hyperextension of the ulnar nerve.

Numbness or tingling in the thumb, index and middle finger is more likely to be caused by compression of the median nerve at the wrist. Although a badly fitting bike can often be the cause of these problems, padded gloves can also help reduce pressure on your ulnar nerve.

Pearl Izumi Select Glove

Pearl Izumi Select Gloves

The Comfort Bridge Gel Padding and articulated shape of the Select glove are deliberately designed to relieve pressure on the ulnar and median nerves on long rides. The synthetic leather palm is durable and water resistant and there’s a hook and loop closure and thumb wipe to boot.

PEARL IZUMI Men's Select Glove | Amazon

The Men's SELECT Gloves are our most padded gloves, perfect for the “ouch, my hands hurt” situations. Featuring a 1:1 gel foam pad placement that’s die-cut to match the hand’s anatomy for optimal support.

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INBIKE 5mm Gel Padded Cycling Gloves

These gloves have a soft gel that extends across the entire palm for wider weight distribution.

Many users have reported that the padding has helped solve problems with pain and numb fingers that they’ve experienced with other gloves, and given the low price point, they’re definitely worth a try. The sizing runs a bit small so measure around your hand before ordering.

INBIKE Cycling Gloves | Amazon

Extra padding with thickened EVA cycling gloves at palm part, super shock absorption, pain and fatigue relieving, guaranteeing men or women cyclers' riding more relaxed and easy.

Buy at Amazon.com
We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Best Cycling Gloves for Long Rides

For long training rides, multi-day races or touring, you want a durable glove that’s not going to fall apart after a few rides. Breathability is important for warm days along with some padding for comfort.

Scott Endurance SF Glove

Built for long days in the saddle the Scott Endurance gloves are designed to be both tough and comfortable. The padded, durable palm helps reduce the impact of vibrations and the moisture-wicking fabric prevents sweaty hands. There’s a snot/sweat panel on the back of the thumb and snug, elasticated cuff.

Scott Endurance SF Gloves | Amazon

Built for the all day epic rides. Unique SCOTT Bonded Technology (SBT) framework on back of hand gives rider a seamless fit and excellent breathability. Palmside features SCOTT Foam Technology (SFT) at the highest level for maximum performance.

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Best Summer Cycling Gloves

The best gloves for summer are the ones that give you extra grip on the bars while keeping your hands cool. Ideally, you want to feel as if you’re not wearing gloves at all.

Sportful R&D Cima Gloves

Sportful RandD Cima Gloves

Drawing from their experience working with pro cycling teams, Sportful designed the Cima gloves for hot temperatures and steep climbs. A lightweight mesh covers the back of the hand and part of the palm to help keep your hands cool.

The rest of the palm is constructed from a synthetic suede material with silicone grip and a minimal amount of padding. The gloves don’t have toweling on the thumb, but the mesh material on the back of the hand works well to soak up the sweat from your brow.

Sportful R&D Cima Gloves 2017 | Amazon

The sportful r&d Cima gloves 2017 is the glove of choice for those climbers; lightweight, highly breathable and comfortable. features: mesh stretched outside.

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Best Mountain Biking Gloves

Full finger gloves are a must for mountain biking where protection is just as important as breathability. We’ve got a full roundup of our favorite mountain biking gloves here, but our top all-around pick for summer downhill and trail riding is the Leatt DBX 4.0 Lite.

Leatt DBX 4.0 Lite

Renowned for great fit and comfort, the super thin ‘NanoGrip’ palm almost makes it feel like you’re not wearing gloves at all. The fingers are touchscreen compatible and the upper is made from a lightweight mesh that wicks away sweat. The knuckle protection looks a little extreme but doesn’t impede flexibility. They’re not cheap but the fit makes these gloves worth the extra dollars.

Leatt DBX 4.0 Lite Adult BMX Bike Gloves | Amazon

Leatt DBX 4.0 lite adult BMX bike gloves - orange/teal/x-large.

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Best Winter Cycling Gloves

Frozen fingers, awkward gear changes, and hot aches: just some of the joys cycling in winter has to offer. A decent pair of gloves is essential for keeping you both warm and safe on winter rides.

The challenge is finding a pair of gloves that keep your fingers from freezing but are thin enough to not impede gear shifting and braking. Check out our full guide to winter cycling gloves here.

Castelli Estremo Gloves

castelli estremo gloves

The Estremo Gloves have a fleece liner and a long neoprene cuff to keep your hands and wrists warm. The WindStopper upper is wind- and water-resistant and users report that these gloves are snug down for 1-2 hour rides in temperatures down to the low 30s.

The gloves aren’t too bulky and they’re true to size with room for a thin liner glove if the temperatures really drop. The sticky silicone print on the underside provides good grip and there’s large, brushed panel on the thumb to wipe streaming noses.

Best Women-Specific Cycling Gloves

Giro Women’s Tessa Glove

giro women’s tessa glove

A comfortable, well-padded glove with Giro’s ergonomic Super Fit design for women. The suede palm provides a decent grip and the 4-way stretch mesh upper helps with breathability. A great all-around glove for summer riding. The fit is snug but true to size.

Louis Garneau Rafale RTR Glove

When the summer evenings start to cool off, these midweight gloves will keep your hands warm.

The thermo-laminated spandex fabric provides some wind and water resistance and the bio gel padding (gel pad) helps relieve pressure on your nerves, reducing the risk of numbness. The printed dot pattern is reflective and conductive fingertips mean you don’t have to take your gloves off to check your phone.

Louis Garneau Women's Rafale | Amazon

Louis Garneau Women's Rafale RTR reflective cycling gloves, black/pink, small.

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Cycling glovePrice ($-$$$$)Size rangeColorsRecommended for
Louis Garneau Vorttice Glove$$$S - XXLBlack/GrayRacing
Pearly Izumi Pro Aero Gloves$$S - XXLBlack, WhiteRacing, short rides, hot weather
Pearl Izumi Select Gloves$$S - XXLBlack/Charcoal, Black/Red, Hi-Vis/BlackHand numbness, long rides
INBIKE 5mm Gel Padded Cycling Gloves$M - XXLRed/White/Black, Blue/White/BlackHand numbness
Scott Endurance SF Glove$$$XS – XXLBlack, Black/RedLong rides
Sportful R&D Cima Gloves$$$S-XXLBlack/RedHot weather, racing
Leatt DBX 4.0 Lite$$$$ MFuel/Red (other colors available)Mountain biking
Castelli Estremo Gloves$$$$S - XXLBlackWinter riding
Giro Women’s Tessa Glove$S-LTurquoise/White (other colors available)Hot weather, long rides, racing
Louis Garneau Rafale 2 Glove$$$S - LBlack, Black/PinkCool weather riding, hand numbness

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