5000 Mile Review of the Heroic SP-R Pro Motorcycle Gloves

I’m usually not inspired to write reviews but, these are the best motorcycle gloves that I’ve ever owned and I think anyone looking to buy a similar track-ready, gauntlet-glove should give these a good look.

Background and Criteria:

I ride 5-10 thousand miles a year and will usually pepper that with a couple of weekend trips and a couple of track-days per season. I tend to avoid riding when there is heavy rain in the forecast but I do expect to get caught in the rain occasionally in the spring. In terms of temperature, I’ll ride whenever it’s over 50F degrees. To save money and reduce the amount of gear that I will need to pack on a weekend trip, I tend to gravitate to moto gear that will work in various situations like spring weekend trips, summer day-rides  and fall track-days. From experience, my gloves usually last 2-4 seasons and I will ride one set everywhere until they wear out. So, for them to be acceptable and good motorcycle gloves, they have to be usable whenever I’m on the bike; no matter what kind of riding I happen to be doing that day.

Fit and Comfort

I tend to fall between sizes for gloves; varying between a small and medium depending on the brand. And usually the small is slightly too small and the medium is slightly too big. After a chat with customer service (more on that later),  I ended up with a size 11(21cm) and the fit was perfect out of box.

On the comfort side of things,  I don’t remember them needing to be broken-in. They were comfortable from the first ride. Usually with gloves, particularly on the knuckle-side of the hand, I can feel the inner construction of the glove - seams, threads, rough leather etc. But with these, even after 5000 miles, I don’t notice anything that would rub and cause discomfort over a ride. The interior still feels -  plush -  and I’ve never used that word before to describe a glove.

Protection

These have all of the protection of a glove that you would expect at the $300+ price point:. Hard knuckle protection, padding and slider at the base of the palm, slippery material at the base of the palm area, connected pinky and ring finger ,etc. So, no disappointing surprises here.

However,  compared to the last couple of gloves I’ve had, the overall construction just feels beefier and more robust. The glove feels bigger and it feels like a more protective glove. Comparing back to back, it’s very noticeable when comparing the Heroic’s to my older gloves. The Heroic’s have raised the bar for me for what I would consider a “solid” track-ready glove.

Wear and Durability

Usually by the end of the second season, I can usually start to see and feel the glove wearing. Whether  it’s getting worn down in some places, discoloration or thread fraying, there is usually apparent wear that would indicate where the glove will eventually fail. At 5000 miles, the SP-R Pro’s look mildly used, as they should, but I can easily see getting more seasons than I usually get out of gloves. Again, they are just more robust than the other glove’s I’ve owned.

It also should be noted that I’ve been caught in light rain on multiple occasions and there were no noticeable changes in the feeling of the glove.

Customer Service

Soon after I put my online order in (I bought directly from the Heroic website), I got a phone call from Heroic asking what kind of fit I wanted to make sure I ordered the right size. It was nice to have a company check-in to try to make sure I was happy from the start. 

What Puts Heroic SP-R Pro’s Over the Others

What makes these gloves better? Aside from the comfort and robustness, which are enough alone to get me to buy, It’s all the little details. You can just tell that these gloves were just designed to be better. What I thought was cool, different and functional:

• The fingers near the tips have an additional grippier material for grabbing the brake and clutch levers.
• The entire length of fingers have a zig-zag stitch for more throttle grip. 
• The wrist cinch pulls from the bottom of the glove rather than from the top and around the whole wrist.. This design is so much more comfortable because it stops the leather from bunching up around the wrist. 
• Seam protection on the thumb side of the glove. Common wear point for gloves. 
• There is what I’m calling the outer-gauntlet. It’s another section that sits over the inner-gaunlet and closes on the underside of the fore-arm.  It effectively makes the gauntlet longer and stiffer, which I think provides more protection in a slide.
• The pinky and ring-finger connection is padded. 
• The top of hand  interior liner is much softer than anything else I’ve tried.
• And lastly, there is more double stitching everywhere.

Pictures:

Possible Improvements

As you can probably tell, I really like these gloves. The only thing that could possibly be added is a hard point on the outside of the wrist. But I think that might be a minor point because of the protection of the outer-gauntlet as I described earlier.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I fully intend to wear these gloves until they wear out and at that point, I will buy another pair. I’ve owned gloves from 4 or 5 different brands over my riding career and I can definitively say that the Heroic SP-R Pro’s are a step above any other similar gloves I’ve tried at this price point. I would recommend them to anyone. 

And for those in the NYC metro:

Heroic is in New York right outside of NYC. If you want to support a local moto-business, definitely check out what they have to offer. 

Website: https://heroicracing.com