Now for a piece of equipment that I can not wholeheartedly endorse...my Oakley MTB gloves. I went through some significant hassle to get them, which may unfairly play a role in my negative view of their performance. You see, I like Oakley stuff. Maybe its because I bought a pair of Oakley Razor Blades sunglasses in 6th grade and wore them to class every day. Maybe its because when I left those same shades on the back of my dad's Bronco a year later, and they fell off and were run over about a thousand times, Oakley replaced them with brand new ones for free. Maybe I'm just a brand snob. Whatever the reason, I own and will continue to buy Oakley stuff. It looks cool, generally performs well, and is backed by excellent Oakley customer service.
So when I saw Oakley made MTB gloves, I wanted a pair. But the price tag was a bit much. I mean, $60 for gloves? My Performance Bike versions cost $9.99, and had served me OK. But I wanted the Oakleys. And after scouring the interwebs for a few weeks, I came across an ad on Craigslist for a pair of new Oakley gloves, with original packaging, for only $30. Now that I could swing!
The problem was that they were owned by a guy in Irvine, and I couldn't try them on before buying. Undeterred, I emailed him and offered him $30 for them via paypal, including shipping and paypal fees. He agreed, and my gloves arrived two days later. And despite being a medium, they were too big. Crap.
I considered washing them to shrink them, but they're leather, so that seemed to be a bad idea. So I called around to some local Oakley stores, and found one with the same gloves in a size small. After a quick detour downtown and an annoying exchange-without-receipt-harangue, I had some sweet Oakley gloves. Sort of.
See, the problem with the gloves themselves (procurement issues and MSRP cost notwithstanding) is that they don't have that much padding, and are not as tactile as I would like. The do have silicon tips on the fingers, which is supposed to make them more grippy and tactile, but doesn't really succeed. Also, the silicone tips on a couple of fingers is already peeling away from the leather glove after just a few months. They also are pretty thin in the palms, and I can see having to replace them relatively quickly if they wear very fast in that area.
Another problem is that these gloves lack padding on the sides of the fingers. I'm sure this is an attempt to increase finger mobility, but the sides of the fingers are only covered by a thin layer of lycra-like material, which resulted in a deep nasty cut to my middle finger during a fall at Anderson Truck Trail back in January that is still scabbed over today.
I do like the fact that they breathe really well for full fingered gloves, and my hands never really get hot when wearing them. They also, like most Oakley stuff, look pretty cool I guess. They claim to have Kevlar padding (Kevlar?!) which could come in handy if someone starts shooting at me on the trail, and the tops of the gloves near the knuckles seem to be adequately protected.
So they're OK, and I'm going to keep wearing them until they do finally fall apart. But I can't faithfully recommend them to anyone else, particularly given the suggested retail price.
If you're still interested in getting a pair, you can buy them here.
EDIT [April 26, 2008]: I tore a hole in the palms of these gloves during a nasty fall at the Noble Canyon ride with the Skyline MTB group. I'm pretty annoyed about that. They didn't hold up very well.
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