I’m still trying to wrap my mind around spending 300 C’s for a pair of motorcycle gloves. The numbers keep ticking off in my head and I can’t keep from thinking about what else I could buy for that much cash. My mind rolls over and over, trying to conjure up something — anything — that can help me overcome the guilt. It isn’t working.
I don’t know about you, but $300.00 is maybe about three times more than I’d like to pay for a great pair of gloves? And guess what? After charging me $300.00, they added $9.99 for shipping! But that’s not all: after the gloves arrived, I got a bill in the mail from “UPS Supply Chain Solutions” for $22.25 in duty and import fees! So the total bill for these babies was $332.24. Ouch!
But hey, we’re doing it all for you, right? We all know that sometimes you do get what you pay for and it’s our job to report back to you on the details and, as we say in our mission statement “Provide information that helps our visitors make informed purchasing decisions”. OK, so the Hurt Schizo gloves cost 300 bucks. Get over it, right? Regular visitors to webBikeWorld know that the higher the cost and the bigger the hype, the greater our expectations are and the B.S. filters are on overdrive. This means that any minor flaw can sour the whole deal.
It also means that for the price of these gloves, I was expecting my hands would feel like, well, like maybe Elizabeth Hurley was massaging them with hot baby oil? Or maybe that wearing the gloves would miraculously allow me to channel Valentino Rossi?
Features
Sorry folks. I have some bad news to report; I honestly can’t tell the difference between these gloves and just about any others I’ve tried. In fact, this pair of Hurt Schizo 700 Impulse “Professional Racing” gloves has a couple of major flaws that would be fatal no matter how low the price.
Let’s hope that it’s just an aberration in the pair we received, which I’ll generously guess is from an early production run, because Hurt won’t be selling many more if the flaws are endemic.
A big problem with evaluating motorcycle gloves — or any other type of protective motorcycle apparel for that matter — is the inability to objectively determine the product’s protective qualities or to compare it to others.
For example, the Hurt Schizo gloves read like a roll call of Political Glove Correctness when it comes to protective features. The list is huge, with features like “racing grade” Kangaroo leather in the palms, a “Second Skin Hypergrip System” (huh?), Kevlar stitches, Schoeller Keprotec reinforcements, Kevlar carbon fiber over the knuckles and more cool-sounding race stuff like “Anti-seam Bursting Technology”, “Seamless Feel Stitching” and more.
But who really knows how much better these gloves might protect than, say, my trusty old pair ofTeknic Violators?
Sure, we’ve all seen the letters from owners who have survived a horrific crash, telling us that “Brand X” saved their hides. But the question to ask is “Compared to what?”. Who can really say whether or not the outcome would have been the same, worse or better if the rider was wearing Brand X under the same circumstances?
The bottom line is that all we can go on is gut feel with a smattering of knowledge gained by other unfortunate souls who have gone through the experience of using their protective gear in anger.
The only other criteria is subjective; the comfort factor. If a pair of gloves (or a helmet or jacket or boots…) isn’t comfortable, chances are the rider won’t be wearing them when (or if) the time comes. And serious discomfort can certainly affect the rider’s concentration.
Fit and Comfort
Which brings us to the primary problem I have with my pair of Hurt Schizo gloves. There’s a sublime irony here in the naming of these gloves, because my pair really does hurt. The problem is that the carbon fiber on top of the knuckles is not molded to the shape of my knuckles (or anyone else’s in the same species) underneath; it’s more flat than anything.
There isn’t much padding under the carbon fiber either and the “floating” section of leather that acts as a mount for the knuckle protector has virtually no lateral flexibility because it is sewn too tightly to the back of the glove.
The result is that my pair of gloves is so tight across the back of my hand that I can’t even wrap my hands around the grips without excruciating pain. I’ve tried to push, pull and stretch the gloves every which way with no luck. I literally can not wrap my hand around the throttle.
Compounding this serious problem are the carbon fiber protectors over the first and second knuckle of the pinky finger on both hands. They are situated in such a way that they interfere with the bending of my fingers at those critical joints, again causing excruciating pain.
It isn’t as if the gloves don’t fit — I was surprised when I placed the order that Hurt didn’t want me to send an outline of my hand, but the size large shown here is right on the money. And my hands are absolutely, perfectly normally sized.
The Schizo gloves come in standard sizes from small to XXL. You’d sort of think that for $300.00 maybe they’d send an engineer to your house to take a custom measurement with a laser coordinate measuring machine or something, no??
But the gloves are the correct size for my hands, with just enough room in the fingertips and elsewhere so that there should definitely not be a problem with flexibility or pain. Hurt does warn that the gloves will need some time to get broken in, but I’ve tried numerous times to wear them and stretch them, both on and off the bike, hoping that I could somehow mold them to fit, but so far it’s been hopeless.
What more can I say? Surely I’d like to like these gloves after spending so much. In terms of looks, they’re no better or worse than any of the other high-end, “Boy Racer” motorcycle gloves on the market.
The finish, as you can see from the photos, is so-so, with some loose thread ends and roughly cut leather sections. This may not affect the protective ability of the gloves, but compare them to, for example, the Alpinestars GP Tech or Kushitani GPR 5 and they look a bit crude. But that’s only subjective…
The lining is also relatively coarse, in my opinion (see the photo at the top of the page). I can feel seams inside and bits of thread here and there catch under my fingernails occasionally as I move my hands.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that based on my experience with this pair, I can’t recommend them. I can’t even wear them. There are very few (like never?) products that we’ve said that about, but I’m giving my honest opinion here.
I’m not sure I’ll be spending another $300.00 on a pair of motorcycle gloves any time soon, because I think there are many choices out there for, say, about half as much that would probably be just as good — and more comfortable.
More wBW: 2013 Summer Motorcycle Glove Review Series
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