TESTED: Tucano Urbano ‘Handwarm’ Heated Gloves

RRP: £169.99 / www.tucanourbano.com / Tested by: Mau

Riding conditions at this time of year can be a little chilly, especially for your hands which are out on the end of your handlebars exposed to all the elements that winter can throw at you. And if your fingers get too cold, then this could affect your reaction time, especially in an emergency scenario.

Heated gloves help to solve this problem; however, some of those available will leave you with trailing wires to your battery or to a fitted charging point. These ‘Handwarm’ heated gloves from Tucano Urbano address that situation by the fitting of a 7.4v lithium rechargeable battery inside each of the actual gloves themselves, thus doing away with the aforementioned scenario.

The gloves are manufactured with a faux suede palm and a back panel constructed in a Neoprene effect technical fabric with goat leather inserts and a microfibre lining. To help keep your hands warm and comfortable, they also come with Primaloft® thermal padding, plus a Hydroscud® waterproof and breathable inner membrane. These gloves are ‘touchscreen’ and are CE approved to meet EN 13594:2015–CE safety standards for motorcycle gloves; they also have type-approved soft protection built into the knuckles. Other features include a long cuff to fit over your jacket sleeves which helps to keep the wind at bay; fitting can be adjusted via the elasticated adjustment and held in place by a strong Velcro strap.

Before trying the gloves out, I charged the batteries overnight using the supplied dual battery charger. Fitting the batteries into the gloves next morning was a relatively easy job, as they only fit one way into their relative pouch (put them in wrong and you can’t seal the waterproof compartment properly). Now ready for use, I tried them on; the weight and position of the batteries made them feel a little strange and heavy at first, but it didn’t take too long to get used to them. Each glove is fitted with a simple ‘on/off’ switch and they have no heat selection levels, so are either ‘on’ or ‘off’ The heat pads are fitted to the palm and the fingers and provided a reasonable amount of heat to both areas; I also found that the harder you gripped the palm, the more heat you seemed to feel in that area.

If you ride a lot in severe winter conditions, then you might want to consider upgrading these gloves to a more expensive pair that might give you a wider range of heat control settings – but to be honest, for commuting and mid-range journeys, they proved to be more than adequate for the job. I think they are well worth their fairly reasonable price. One word of warning though; you might want to disconnect the batteries if you’re thinking of stuffing them in your helmet when not in use, as it’s very easy for them to be switched on accidentally – and you don’t want to end up with cold hands.