GripGrab Ride Padded Short Finger Summer Gloves

The GripGrab Ride Padded Short Finger Summer Gloves are a lightweight design with minimal padding – great for road riding or light gravel where feel at the bars is more important. They are reasonably priced too – there's plenty to like.

For more options, check out our guide to the best summer cycling mitts.

Contrary to the GripGrab SuperGel Padded gloves that I reviewed a while back, which offered loads of extra comfort at the palms, these Ride mitts are a more minimalist design.

The padding – one section located between thumb and forefinger, and the other, larger one, at the bottom of the palm – is thin, but still offers an improvement over no gloves at all. It's perhaps not enough for longer rides over bumpy terrain, which is where the SuperGel gloves shine, but for lighter gravel and road riding, it's great.

The grippy fabric at the palm helps to keep your hands firmly in place on the handlebar, and on hotter days you don't get that sweaty slipperiness that you can without gloves. Your bar tape should stay in better condition too.

The tops of the palms feature a breathable fabric, and they kept my hands cool and comfortable across a range of temperatures, whether a mild morning or a very unseasonably-warm October afternoon.

The only downside to the design is that they don't feature the same sweat/snot-wipe that the bulkier SuperGel version does.

The gloves are constructed from a mix of materials, including 40% polyamide, 30% polyester, 15% polyurethane, and 15% elastane. It's worth noting that none of these are recycled materials. GripGrab has committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 55% in 2030, however.

Available in a range of colours, including black, white, red, and blue, the Ride mitts also feature a decent amount of reflective detail on the tops for a boost of visibility early or late in the day.

The sizes go from small to XXL. I tested a large, as I did with the SuperGel version, and the fit was spot on for my long and wide, but slender hands (I usually wear XL in regular non-cycling gloves).

They fit snugly but very comfortably, with no tight spots thanks to the stretchy material. Unlike the SuperGel gloves there are no adjustable cuff straps, but I think they're unnecessary anyway.

One thing I neglected to mention in my review of the SuperGel gloves is the pull-off tabs located in between the finger exits, but given the same feature is included in the Ride version, I'll tell you about it now.

The idea is that they help you remove the mitts by giving you something to pull on, though I found it only marginally useful – because of the gloves sticking to my hands on the inside, I still had to partly remove them from the inside.

Value

At a very reasonable £21.95, the GripGrab Rides are at the lower end of the price spectrum for cycling mitts, with only one or two we've tested, such as the Lusso Momentum Summer Gloves, being marginally less expensive (£19.99).

If it weren't for the lack of a sweat/snot-wipe I'd say these gloves are very good value for money. Given that they don't, you could argue that the Stolen Goat Nettle Cycling Mitts, which do, are a better buy at only £3 more.

Conclusion

These are excellent summer mitts that work well for a variety of rides, though their lightweight padding makes them better suited to less harsh terrain. Only the lack of a sweat/snot-wipe lets them down slightly. I'd also like to see GripGrab start using recycled materials in the construction of its products.

Verdict

Effective and reasonably priced mitts for road or light gravel