Top Picks For You
ILM Alloy Steel Motorcycle Gloves
A budget-friendly, ultra-cozy winter glove prioritizing maximum windproofing and heavy hard-shell knuckle protection over instantaneous control lever agility.
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KEMIMOTO Waterproof Winter Motorcycle Gloves
A heavy-duty, multi-use winter glove offering intense insulation and wet-weather defense for riders willing to trade fine touchscreen sensitivity for freezing-weather warmth.
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The best waterproof motorcycle gloves keep your hands dry, but every pair on the market trades away some feel for the levers to do it, and the honest reviews are the only place that tradeoff shows up.
Product pages talk about membranes and knuckle armor. They never mention that a weatherproof glove is stiffer than a summer glove, and stiffer means your thumb has to work harder to find the horn button.
We read through owner reviews and forum threads instead of spec sheets to find out how much control each glove costs you, and which one costs the least. A smaller grip budget is already working against you in the rain, so the last thing your hands need is a glove that fights you too.
ILM Alloy Steel Motorcycle Gloves: Best Overall
Key Features
- Molded alloy steel knuckle armor for impact resistance
- Windproof and waterproof winter shell construction
- Touchscreen-compatible thumb and index fingertips
This is the pair riders reach for first. The alloy steel knuckle shell sits over a waterproof, windproof shell built for winter use, with a touchscreen-friendly index finger and thumb.
One owner who tested both a no-name glove and this one side by side gives the clearest real account of what you’re buying. The no-name pair let wind cut straight through and had no real armor.
The ILM pair blocked wind everywhere except a small gap at the fingertips, kept his hands warm enough to call them the coziest gloves he owns, and held up because of the hard knuckle shell.
The tradeoff came at the controls: that same shell made the turn signal and horn tricky to operate at first, since the glove doesn’t flex the way a soft summer glove does.
Another owner backed up the value case directly: nothing at this price gets close, though the fit runs snug, so buyers with bigger hands size up.
Skip this one if fine control at the bars matters more to you than warmth, or if you already own a glove with a supple gauntlet you don’t want to give up.
KEMIMOTO Waterproof Winter Motorcycle Gloves: Best for Serious Cold and Wet
Key Features
- High-visibility reflective strip for safer low-light riding
- Hard PVC shell knuckle coverage
- Rainproof and windproof insulated multi-vehicle shell
- Cross-compatible build suitable for motorcycles, ATVs, and snowmobiles
KEMIMOTO’s winter line pairs a rainproof, windproof shell with a PVC hard-shell knuckle and a reflective strip for low light. Riders call it a great value, comfortable, and sturdy, with the one recurring complaint being that the touchscreen fingertips don’t always register a tap through the added layer.
Riders who bought a pair for winter riding season after season repeat the same sizing note: order one size up from what you’d normally wear, since a glove built to seal out weather runs snug from the start.
One buyer picked up a pair for both a motorcycle and an ATV, which is a fair way to think about this glove: KEMIMOTO builds it as a cold-weather riding glove first, with motorcycle, ATV, and snowmobile riders all buying the same pair, so treat the extra versatility as a bonus rather than the reason to buy it.
Skip this one if you ride somewhere winters stay mild. The insulation that keeps a Chicago commute bearable turns into dead weight on a 50-degree ride.
How the Two Waterproof Gloves Compare
| ILM Alloy Steel | KEMIMOTO Waterproof Winter | |
|---|---|---|
| Knuckle protection | Molded alloy steel shell | PVC hard shell |
| Standout feature | Proven track record, 10,000+ ratings | Reflective strip for low-light riding |
| Known weak point | Bulky controls until broken in | Touchscreen taps miss sometimes |
| Best for | An everyday winter and wet-weather pair | Riders facing real cold on top of the wet |
What These Gloves Trade Away, and How to Buy Around It
Both gloves above sacrifice some dexterity for weatherproofing, and that’s true of nearly every glove in this category, not just these two. A membrane that stops water has to sit somewhere, and it usually sits between your fingers and the lever. Expect a short break-in period with either pair before the stiffness eases.
Order a size up from your usual glove size. That single tip shows up again and again in the reviews for both gloves here, and it’s the fix for the most common complaint in this category: not water getting through, but a glove that feels too tight to wear all day.
If you want a glove that keeps more of its dexterity in exchange for less weatherproofing, that’s a real option worth weighing rather than a downgrade.
Our rain suit vs waterproof gear breakdown covers the same tradeoff for the rest of your riding kit, and it applies to gloves too: more weatherproofing almost always costs you some feel.
Rest of the Kit
Gloves cover your hands, not the rest of you. A rain suit handles your torso and legs, and rain covers for your boots close the last gap, at your ankles, that a jacket and pants alone leave open.