Five Days of Black Diamond — Day 4 — Gloves

BD Impulse gloves.

I’ll finish up our BD push next week, after we get the new Fritschi Eagle bindings activated on a pair of 09/10 Kilowatt skis (he he he). Meanwhile, a brief mention of some excellent gloves.

My hands burn like a furnace. All winter long, I count in just several days the time I wear more than a lightweight form-fitting glove. Mostly, such mitts take the form of thin knit gloves or even leather work gloves. But these choices have their limit. Either they don’t wear well, or they wet through quickly, or they don’t give knuckle protection for skiing or snowmobiling through trees and brush.

Knowing my penchant for thin gloves, my liaison at Black Diamond suggested I try their new Impulse model. They still might be a bit warm for me, but do provide excellent protection and a super ergo fit.

Impulse gloves are nice and thin, but still have knuckle protection in the form of molded foam.

The backs and cuffs of Impulse gloves are made from Polartec Power Shield softshell (palms are leather), with a light fleece liner. The fingers are pre-curved for your manly grip on an ice tool or snowmobile throttle. The stitching is Kevlar. About the only thing I don’t like is the Velcro cuff closure — something that bothers me no matter what glove it is on. Why? The darned stuff catches on everything (especially other Velcro), and is just one more thing to fiddle with. Whatever happened to basic knit cuffs on gloves? Slip ’em on or off without a thought…

Oh well, pretty good stuff anyway, especially the way BD’s glove designers left just a thin layer of leather under your fingers and palms — like wearing a leather glove on the bottom and a softshell glove on top. Shop for ’em here.