The Klim Badlands GTX glove is the burliest high-performance gauntlet weve ever had in the store. Full stop
The Badlands GTX Long is a LOT of glove, but from the second you pull it on, a task made easy thanks to a huge and handy pull-tab, these gloves feel smaller than they look. Despite the obvious girth, theyre engineered in a way they dont feel (that) cumbersome or unwieldy.
It's still a massive glove, but well thought-out and as capable as possible. Minus upgrading to a heated option, like a 12-volt Gerbing, or a 7-Volt glove, like the KLIM , this Badlands is about the most performance you can expect from a "conventional" winter glove.
Thats largely because the serious over-molded armor over the knuckles and the 60grams of 3M Thinsulate insulation covers the entire back of the hand, but the inside of the hand remains unlined, offering unencumbered feel at the controls, and decent dexterity that might be surprising in such a substantial glove.
The palm of the glove is purposely left un-insulatedso despite this being the about the heftiest gauntlet we've ever stocked, the wearer still enjoys good tactile feel at the controls, and will better benefit from heated grips.
A neoprene gasket inside the gauntlet creates an air- and water-tight seal around the users wrist, ensuring the elements stay out and the riders stays warm and dry.
KLIM uses ceramic-printed paneling at the heel of the hand and along the lower cuff of the gauntlet for extra abrasion resistance. Weve seen this sort of technology sprinkled throughout other products for years.
Usually the technology carries the brand-name SuperFabric (used on the Racer uses on its , for example), and whether it's capital S "SuperFabric" or not, the concept of integrating ceramic epoxy dots is a good one: providing a lower coefficient of friction than the passing pavement. And Klim integrates this feature nicely with the glove.
To give you an idea of the conditions this glove was designed for, it sports two visor wipersone on the left for rain, and the other on the right for snow and ice.
- Gore-Tex Gore Grip waterproofing
- 60 Grams 3M Thinsulate insulation on the backhand
- Polycarbonate Knuckle Armor with Poron XRD cushioning
- Ceramic Print fabric in knuckle, palm and gauntlet cuff
- Accordion stretch paneling on the back of the hand, fingers and thumb
- Soft fleece liner
- Touchscreen compatible fingertips
- 3M Scotchlite reflective accents
