Review: Held Sambia Gloves and retailer MotardINN

[DFW_Warrior]

Years and years ago a buddy turned me onto the Held Sambia RST gloves and I bought a pair of them. They were and still are my go to gloves for anything where a summer glove is the pick for the day. Fast forward 6 or 7 years and my well worn pair of Held Sambia's have seen some things. They are a little thin in spots, they have a blown seam on one finger, and they are just a little crusty. They have also seen 10's upon 10's of thousands of miles in all sorts of heat, dust, bugs, rain, and so forth. I went looking for a new pair and I was pretty gutted to see that they don't make this style anymore but instead they have revised them to have perforated leather palms on all of there new models. Now I don't have to tell you why I don't like perf leather when it comes to glovies, so lets just say I was not a happy camper.

Long story short, I found an online retailer in Spain of all places that showed to have two pair of these in stock for a pretty darn good price. Normal price on them was somewhere in the $150 range back in the day when these were bought, and they had them on closeout for $80'ish. I did some research on the website and most folks seemed to go with that it was a legitimate site and that the only downside was the sometimes shipping to the US was kind of slow. I went for it and figured we could try it out.

So one month later, my gloves finally arrived! They would have been here a lot sooner but they got held up in customs at the post office which seemed to be a common problem when reading reviews of their shipping. So no knock on them for this but just another one of those Post Office quirks I guess.

If you are ever in the market for some darn good gloves, I can't recommend Held enough. They are REALLY well made and last a really long time and if your hand is the right shape for them, they fit like a..... well, glove.

And if you are every looking around and stumble upon https://www.tradeinn.com/motardinn/en and think "man, this website probably isn't real," have no fear, it is real and they really do ship to the US for less than $10. Just be warned that you might not get your stuff for a bit if the USPS has anything to say about it.

 

[copb8]

It seems I may have monkey hands as I'm having to pick between XXL and XXXL when glove shopping. How do these gloves fit? It seems European clothing in general runs much smaller than the US articles.

 

[misterk]

I have been wearing those Held gloves for years and love them. I usually get about 2 years out of a pair of gloves.

 

[bwdmax]

It seems I may have monkey hands as I'm having to pick between XXL and XXXL when glove shopping. How do these gloves fit? It seems European clothing in general runs much smaller than the US articles.

I too am a fan of Held gloves. They make many styles in regular, short finger, and long finger. finger length increments allow me to get a good fit. When shopping traditional gloves I too get stuck between sizes having to pick between something that fits the palm of my hand and is short in finger length or picking something that fits my fingers and is loose in the palm. Many of the U.S. based sellers don't offer the different finger options. I have had good service from "The Visor Shop" a UK based company that has a good selection of styles and fits of the Held line of gloves. Here is a link to the Sambia Pro glove which is similar to the ones Bill shows above but they have the perforated palm and they come in the regular, long and short versions.

Held Sambia Pro Motorcycle Glove (Grey/Black) The Visor Shop.com

Held Sambia Pro Motorcycle Glove (Grey/Black) The Sambia is a dual/sport or Adenture glove, featuring Kangaroo leather on the palm, hard knuckle protection, light breathable nylon material on back of hand. Protection certified under norm E .... £109.95.Free P & P Available.

www.thevisorshop.com

 

[DFW_Warrior]

It seems I may have monkey hands as I'm having to pick between XXL and XXXL when glove shopping. How do these gloves fit? It seems European clothing in general runs much smaller than the US articles.

I think we might have vastly different shapes of hands but like @bwdmax said, they make several different styles. For me, I usually end up buying XL to fit my palms but then the fingers are way too long. For example, I wear a XL in some of the RS Taichi gloves but every time I have about a half an inch extra on every finger. I am pretty consistently an XL in most gloves though. I've got some Klim and Oneal dirt gloves in XL and the Klim's are slightly better than the Oneal gloves when it comes to my shorter fingers. I have those RS Taichi gloves, and I have some Gerbings heated gloves in XL that seem to fit fairly well.

I will say, these Held gloves in a size 10 are a snug fit at first but as soon as you get a few miles in on them, they break in SO nice. At least when you have hands and fingers shaped like me.

Here are some sizing photos for reference:

And while my old ones certainly aren't 100% done for, it was getting really darn close to end of life and I'm glad I was able to find a few more to keep me going with gloves that I know I will love wearing. Helmets and gloves are something I never want to compromise the fitment. Those two things have to be spot on and with these gloves at least for me, I couldn't ask for any more.