Brian Sansom Police Summer Waterproof gloves in black

Brian Sansom is the founder of the original BKS company, maker of the world's best one-piece and two-piece leather motorcycle suits. His BKS is not to be confused with the BKS brand marketed by J&S accessories, even though the logo is the same. It's a long story!

 

Having been impressed with the quality of the suits he made for them, Brian found that many of the Police forces he supplied wanted him to create gloves for their riders. He doesn't make these in house, but they are put together by one of the most highly regarded, off-shore, glove making factories to his very specific brief.

 

Some years ago we came to an 'exclusive' agreement with Brian to offer his Police gloves to our customers. Actually, until recently, we offered just the summer version because we found his waterproof glove just too uncompromising in terms of fit.

 

Well the glove has been totally redesigned, and I have to tell you that the way it wears is night and day different. The new, summer-waterproof, Police glove is much nicer and more comfortable than the old one. So much so that we have decided to range it again.

 

The starting point is a 0.9 mm leather chassis. And that's heavy duty. That's the thickness of some one-piece suits these days. It's certainly the weight of lots of leather jackets. And it's a thicker than any other glove you will ever come across.

 

But Brian then overlays the chassis with more leather. There's a large panel that covers the palm and then runs down the side of the hand. Additional panels run down the fronts of the three central fingers. On the little finger, the panel runs all around the finger. On the outside edge it incorporates three small, foam pads. There's another swathe of leather on the thumb. At the base of the fingers there's a panel of leather with a silicone grid pattern printed on to it. This serves to improve purchase on the bars. The same stuff appears at the ends of the fingers to improve purchase on the bars.

 

The glove secures by means of a Velcro wrist strap. You get a visor wiper on the left hand, but what you don't get is touchscreen-sensitive fingers. The Police don't need them!

 

Now let's talk about protectors. The main one, obviously, is on the knuckles. It's a hard protector that's covered with leather, and is backed with foam to absorb the energy of an impact. All of the fingers, as well as the thumb, feature leather-covered TPU protectors.  You then get two hard, plastic sliders on the palm. One on the outside of the palm; one on the inside that might be considered more of a scaphoid protector. There's one more hard protector on the glove's leather cuff. Finally, there's a foam pad behind the main, knuckle protector.

 

The reason that the previous glove was so uncomfortable was that the 'drop-liner' membrane made the fingers too bulky. There was simply too much going on; and this made wearing the gloves not particularly pleasant. The difference here is that the membrane is bonded to the leather. Ironically, in many gloves a laminated membrane would make a glove less comfortable, but here where the issue is one of bulk the laminated membrane actually makes the glove more comfortable. 

 

But here's the thing. The membrane will make the glove more waterproof than the version without a membrane, but in a glove like this that's constructed entirely of leather, the ever present possibility is 'wetting out'. So yes, this glove may be better in the rain, but in our view the main difference between the two Ploice gloves is that this one is going to be warmer. The membrane will serve to combat wind chill, but also to insulate heat coming off the hand.

 

And so you might want to think of this version more as a warmer version than, necessarily, a drier one.

 

That is to overstate the case, perhaps. The membrane will still keep the wet stuff at bay, but the reality is that if staying dry is your priority then there are many better options out there.

 

As ever, we don't see ourselves as people who 'sell' motorcycle wear. Obviously we do sell gear, and we need to in order to survive, but it is not our way to push hard on any product; we hate the idea that somebody might accuse us of 'over-selling'. Which is why we always try to manage expectations. And quite frankly if this glove doesn't meet your expectations we would rather you didn't buy it.

 

So who is this glove suited to?

 

Well, it will appeal to the person who, mistakenly or not, prioritises protection over almost everything else.

 

And whilst the pure-summer version still exists, I think we would suggest that this summer-waterproof glove  is more practical; and rounded.

 

The issue, though, is still one of comfort. And comfort is not to be dismissed as a consideration. It's all tied in with what we term 'passive safety'. It's about riding without distraction, such that you can concentrate solely on the road, and hopefully avoid the need to rely on the protective qualities of your clothing.

 

This is not, in our world, a particularly comfortable glove. For some it will be comfortable enough, and things like its pre-curved fingers and concertina banding in the fingers will make it a little easier to live with. But I might suggest that this glove is not for the leisure rider who does 3,000 miles a year. If that's your regime, it'll take too many years to wear these gloves in.

 

Remember. These gloves were made for the Police. Those guys do big miles. And they travel at the kinds of speeds that the rest of us don't. For them this glove makes perfect sense. For the rest of us, not quite so much, perhaps.

 

This is a glove that will work for you if you are minded to make it work, if you are prepared to make a commitment to it, and if you have the patience to allow it to wear in. But if you are a weekend rider with an unhealthy obsession with being protected against every possible eventuality it might not.

 

The Brian Sansom Police glove is what it is. It is not necessarily what you'd like it to be!