Gloves, FFS

Ever crashed? I have, on several occasions. And guess what? Every time, I have munted my gloves. That should come as no surprise because our instinct, whenever we are about to crash to the ground, is to stick our hands out to break the fall. From my earliest memories of riding a motorbike, the one item of clothing I would never, ever be without is a pair of gloves. Even puttering around my Aunt and Uncle’s paddock as a kid, I wouldn’t always have a helmet but I would always wear gloves.

It was much the same on my old Raleigh Chopper, especially if we were off to race downhill like loons or practice some mad stunts - I wore a pair of leather driving gloves. And when the inevitable came, they actually did enough to keep the skin on my hands.

When I see people riding motorbikes and scooters around, with bare hands, I physically shudder. The other day I gave the nod to a guy coming the other way on a Ninja 250R, only to start shaking my head when I saw he had no gloves on. Proper jacket and helmet, but no gloves.

In my book, that’s just stupid. And I don’t expect many comments from riders who don’t wear gloves. Because, if that’s you, you probably can’t type much with two bloody stumps on the ends of your arms. It’s going to happen to you eventually.

Wear gloves!!