Tested: Tucano Urbano Tetris motorcycle gloves review

Date reviewed: November 2017 | Tested by: Graham Mudd | Price: £99.99 | tucanourbano.co.uk

Besides having removable inners (which can be worn on their own), these winter gloves have pockets for disposable or reusable heated pads; I’ve been using them for around four months during my daily winter commute…

Fit and feel

From the first try, these gloves feel plush and luxurious. They’ve been extremely comfortable on even the longest trips, with no pinches or tight spots even with the straps done all the way up.

As is to be expected of a winter glove, they are a touch on the bulky side, with the associated loss of feeling, but this in no way stops you from operating the controls effectively. And there are a lot on my Suzuki Burgman.

They also breathe effectively, never making your hands sweaty, even with the heated grips on. The only issue I had was that the outer is too bulky to go inside my jacket sleeve, which isn’t adjustable enough to easily to fit over – try them with your kit first.

The outer gloves are four-finger, while the removable inners are five-finger, and can be worn on their own.

Temperature

In moderately cold weather the gloves perform well; on trips hovering around 5°C my hands were comfortable on a 50mile commute without resorting to the heated grips or inserting heat pads. However, on a couple of days the temperature dropped to -4°C and my fingers were painfully cold in 20 minutes, so I had to switch on the heated grips.

The unique selling point of these gloves is that you can pop a heated pad inside – be it a disposable iron-filing type one, or one of the resuable gel types, with the round ‘clicker’ inside. None are supplied with the gloves, so you’ll need to buy them yourself – I bought iron filing and gel pairs from Amazon.

After that cold trip, I tried gel on the way to work and iron filing on the way back, but the thermal lining of the inner gloves is so effective that they limit any heat into the glove to a dull glow, and my fingers suffered the same

The advantage of having pockets in which you put reheatable gel or iron filing heat pads is that there is no power draw on your alternator. There are also no cables to install or get snagged. By way of experiment I also bought some microwavable gel pads – although hot straight out of the oven, they don’t get that hot or last very long. The iron filing types are single use and take quite some time to heat up but when they do they get much hotter and last for hours.

Protection & fastening

The textile outer glove has armoured knuckles and leather palms. The little and ring fingers are contained in a ‘crab claw’ to enhance protection in a crash, and help to  – they feel rugged yet comfortable and don’t restrict the thermal inner. Fastening is by way of a Velcro strap across the underside of the wrist, and a Velcro cuff for fit.

While the outers are four finger gloves, the inners are five finger, and can be worn separately.

The palm is goat leather, while the top is a ‘neoprene-effect’ technical fabric. When worn with the inner gloves, the Tetris is CE-approved.

Wet weather use

Over the month of testing I encountered a few lengthy and heavy downpours and the gloves performed flawlessly. While the outer did let a bit of moisture through, the inners stopped any of it getting to my hands. The left thumb has a rubber blade built in, which did a good job of clearing my visor. The bonuses of having a removable inner glove is that, unlike other winter gloves I’ve owned, they don’t turn themselves inside out when wet and you try to remove your hand. Also, when separated, they dry really quickly.

Lining

The lining is plush and comfy, and warm in all but the coldest conditions.

Conclusion

These are a solid performing pair of gloves that are well made and comfortable with some useful features (including the ability to use touchscreens with them on). They’re fully waterproof, don’t make your hands sweat and are warm in all but the coldest conditions. Despite the capacity for heated pads being something of a red herring, I’m impressed with the removable liner, which has made these surprisingly practical.