Intro:

I’ve heard them called all sorts of things: “hippo hands”, “elephant ears” or “gauntlets”.  The latter definitely sounds the coolest, but in reality they end up looking like either of the prior.  The fact though is that while people can deride them all day long, the only person laughing is the guy riding with them on his bike.  He gets to wear normal riding gloves, and his hands and wrists stay toasty warm, and more importantly, DRY.  I purchased a pair of PowerMadd Gauntlets just recently, in preparation for the winter commute.  I ride about 15 miles each way to work every morning and eve, and I usually leave in the coldest part of the morning, and the coldest part of the evening.  I’ve tried all kinds of gloves, except the $200 plus pairs out there.  These gauntlets were sub $40.00 and came highly recommended so I gave them a shot.  What fallows is a basic install guide, and my thoughts.

a shot of the exterior

a shot of the interior

Install:

I’ll do this in photography with captions…seems to be the simplest method.

Step1: remove your hand guard and slide the gauntlet over the guard so that the elastic straps are stretched around the large part of the guard.

Step2: insert this end first!

Step3: Bolt up the bar-clamp bolt now and tighten it down.

Step4: You should be looking like this. Make sure your bar-plug is fully inserted. Depending on how temperamental your clamps are, you may have to monkey around with this a bit.

Step5: Velcro part one

Step6: Velcro part two

Step7: Tighten down the strap, and cinch it up.

Step8: I put the extra length back through the top of the loop (toward the front of the bike)

front view of the left side

back view of the left side: I just want to stick my paws in it!

What is missing here?

Alright now that wasn’t so bad.  So I went and did the right side in 1/8th the time it took me to do the left, and quickly realized something.  In our lovely state of WA, mirrors are a requirement on motorbikes.  Well I don’t see any accommodation at all for a mirror in these gauntlets.  Was it just missed?  Unlikely.  It’d be my guess that these are meant more for off-road use only.  Well that being the case I’m going to have to make a solution.  Can’t be riding around tempting the police to pull me over…lord knows I don’t need that.

something like this

going to need a punch-hole right about here

like so

I added a little nylon washer to the mirror post, in hopes of sealing a bit better against the fabric.

As we like to say in the office: D U N

Impressions:

I’m excited about using these.  I much prefer to ride a normal glove, with better protection than my winter dirt-bike gloves, as they get the job done off road, but they make me nervous in the street.  Going down on asphalt in those would not be fun at all.  So these gauntlets do inspire a bit of confidence, which is always a great thing on your motorbike.  The fit was great, they look OK, and they aren’t too floppy or saggy or anything, even though they are on Barkbusters, and not PowerMadd hand guards.  I should mention that on the internal view, you might be able to see the little elastic ‘pocket’ toward the open end of the gauntlet, this was designed specifically to fit on PowerMadd hand-guards, and so I’m not using that pocket on my bike, but it does not appear to be a necessity to install them.

(+)

• nice material and stitching quality
• easy to install on (presumably) any hand guards
• keeps paws happy
• run normal riding gloves
• easy on/off (just remove the hand guards)

(-)

• there hast to be a more attractive solution (besides $200+ gloves)
• no mirror options! Really!?

I’ll ride these for the remainder of the winter and offer up a report to you guys about my long haul impressions.  Hope this helps someone!

Tags: acerbis, bark busters, dirt bike, gauntlets, hand guards, Husqvarna, installation, powermadd, review, TE610, winter riding