Specialized

It's officially winter now, although the temperature is still pretty up and down, it's definitely time for gloves not mitts. With that in mind, I've got a pair of Specialized Body Geometry Ridge Wiretap long finger gloves that I've been testing. Aside from competing for a longest product name award, the Ridge's are fairly lightweight full finger gloves from Specialized, with some good technical features. Being part of Specialized's Body Geometry range, the palm/heel of the glove has gel padding to protect your ulnar nerve. The rest of the padding is actually quite minimal, using reinforced synthetic leather. This gives great feel of the grip, but still blister and graze protection. The price for that increased feel is no real damping of trail buzz, but if that's what you want, there is a fully padded version as well. On the other side of the glove, the back is nylon/spandex mesh, with towelling down the thumb for sweat wiping. Finally we have the "Wiretap" feature - this is metallic thread in the thumb and index finger tip, which allow the use of touchscreen devices without having to remove your gloves. In Use The gloves are very comfortable off and on the bike, with terrific feel of the grips and controls. They aren't at all restrictive, especially considering they are full finger and became like a second skin very quickly. Trail buzz was certainly noticeable compared to my fully padded BG mitts, but that's a choice rather than a defect - if it's an issue for you, definitely go with the fully padded version. The Wiretap feature worked - more or less! It does require your finger or thumb to be fully filling the glove to the tip, which didn't quite without pulling them down. But once in the right place I could happily use my phone and reset Endomondo. Lengthy texting would probably be more of an issue, but you're supposed to be riding your bike, not texting! In terms of keeping your hands warm, they worked well down to a few degrees centigrade. I'll be honest that we just haven't had conditions colder than that in the last few months, so I don't yet know how low they really go, although I suffer from cold hands at the best of times, so I reckon they're fine above freezing. The mesh design also kept my hands fairly comfortable in warmer conditions too - I was happy using them at 12 degrees on one of the wildly varied days we've had recently. Overall In all I have been very impressed with the gloves and I've been very happy using them this winter. I can even see myself using them through spring and then we will have to see how high a temperature they will be comfortable in. I think it will probably be summer before they come off though, and I won't mind that at all.   Link - Specialized.com