Chiba Gel Comfort Active Eco-Line Mitt

The Chiba Gel Comfort Active Eco-Line Mitts come with plenty of padding to reduce road buzz and take the edge off rough surfaces. If you suffer from pins and needles on the bike then these might be just  the gloves you need.

• Pros: Comfortable, firm padding; cool in the heat
• Cons: Overly large finger loops; a bit rough around the edges

I'm not a big fan of loads of padding in gloves, normally because it is quite soft and can squidge and shift around the palm of your hand once you are gripping the handlebar.

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The Chibas are different, though, as the padding here is quite firm. The material used is 'poron XRD', which, it's claimed by the company that makes it, will absorb 90% of any impact. This makes the Eco-Line mitts a very good choice if you spend time off-road or on gravel tracks.

That firmness means the padding stays exactly where it is and still provides plenty of feedback from the bike to your hands.

It's thick, too, a good couple of millimetres, to keep the palm of your hand raised off the bar to stop compression of both your ulnar and carpal nerves, as reducing blood flow here brings on the dreaded pins and needles.

It's not perfect; if I was really gripping the bar tightly in a race situation or on a bit of technical terrain I would get a little bit of tingling in my fingers after a while. When just riding around normally, though, with a relaxed grip, I could cruise along in comfort without issue.

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Across the middle of the palm you get a small section of softer, thinner padding than that used at the bottom of the hand; there is also a small section running across beneath the fingers.

The synthetic leather palm looks to be hardwearing and provides plenty of grip against any bar tape.

For the back of the hand you get a couple of different materials. Across the knuckles the Chibas use a mesh fabric that allows a cool breeze to flow through, so even though these mitts are black they never felt overly hot.

It's good to see that the top of the thumb has a snot/sweat wipe, and then the rest of the glove just uses a standard Lycra which provides a close fit.

The mitts are available in a range from S-XXL. The mediums here should cover a hand circumference of 20.3-21.6cm; I am bang on the top of that and the gloves were a bit snug around the fingers, so it might be wise to go up a size if you're near the upper limit.

To remove the mitts you get a couple of finger loops on each hand. While they are undoubtedly useful for getting them off sweaty hands, they are quite large which means they can get trapped between the glove and handlebar, which isn't the most comfortable.

The Chibas have an rrp of £19.99 which isn't bad, the same as the excellent Altura Sportive 97 mitts but a lot cheaper than the likes of Wearwell's Revivals at £46 or Northwave's Evolutions for £34.99. The average price for mitts looks to be around the £25 mark.

For the money, the Chibas are of a decent enough quality, although there is a bit of loose stitching here and there plus around the finger ends they look a bit scruffy. They look to be long lasting and durable across the board, though, so I'd say they're definitely worth a look.

Verdict

Comfortable gloves especially ideal for those long, steady day rides