The DXR Patok GT Spring gloves are short-cuff gloves made from goat leather and textile with hard knuckle protection and palm sliders.
The textile areas contain air mesh inserts to help airflow. They fasten just below the wrist with a velcro tab and have touchscreen-compatible fabric on the index finger, but the thumb material works equally well on my phone. All this for a sniff under twenty quid.
I have worn these now for just over 600 miles, which included a 530-mile tour of Wales and the Midlands during Britain's record-breaking heatwave, with the temperature poking its head above 40°C.
All in all, I’m pretty impressed with a pair of gloves that cost me less than it does to fill up my MT-07’s fuel tank.
Despite the canny price tag, I found them to be really comfortable - with great flexibility, no chafing seams or awkward pinch points.
The sizes seem to run a bit small, so I went for large (I’m normally a medium) and these were still only just about long enough in the finger for me.
Photography: Adam Pigott
After a few hundred miles I became more aware that my fingers were touching the end of the glove, but I wouldn’t say I was uncomfortable. It’s crossed my mind that perhaps it was the heat making my fingers swell.
The Patok GT Spring gloves offer good knuckle protection and there’s good padding on the underside of the hard knuckle shell. This initially felt weird, like there was too much padding, but I forgot about it once riding. It also meant I didn’t have any uncomfortable hard bits on the flex of the knuckle. In hot conditions the padded area was the part of my hand that felt the hottest and most lacking in airflow.
The hard palm slider doesn’t interfere with comfort when wearing the gloves, but feels like an upgraded feature for such a low-priced glove.
It didn’t feel like the gloves were directly ventilated to the skin, but I could feel airflow around my fingers when riding, however in the high temperatures I faced it was difficult to detect as the air flowing through is just so hot.
Perhaps I would have benefited from some more direct perforations on the palm and underside of the fingers, like the ones on the DXR Poker CE Gloves.
Riding in temperatures touching 40°C felt surreal and my hands did sweat in these gloves, but it’s no surprise considering every inch of me was sweating anyway.
On my tour I also experienced some typical British mizzle and, as you might expect from a non-waterproof summer glove, my hands got wet pretty quickly.
Despite this the grip on the handlebars remained true and I used a suede patch on the thumb to wipe water from my visor. I don’t rate these as much as a rubber visor wipe and I found this smeared and blurred the rain on my visor rather than clearing it, probably because the patch was already soaked.
However, this isn’t a criticism as the Patok gloves are designed for dry weather riding so I’m just pointing out what to expect if you get caught out in the rain.
The touchscreen material works very well. Many touchscreen gloves I have owned seem to work ‘fine’ until I have paid for them, but these do the job brilliantly.
They are better than any glove that has stated they have ‘touchscreen compatibility’ that I have EVER bought. By that I mean any glove, whether it be for motorcycling or for casual winter walks.
The rigidity of the material used on the fingertips really helped with the precision of tapping a touchscreen. No need to remove my glove in a frustrated fluster because I can’t get my sat nav to work!
Overall, if you are looking for something cheap that will cover the basics through the summer months you can’t go wrong by chucking twenty quid at a pair of these gloves. They will definitely do the job on a typical summer's day, and even stand up to any abnormal heatwaves too.