100% Celium 2 glove palm

This is a review of the Ride 100% Celium 2 mountain bike gloves, but if you’ll allow me, I’d like to tell you how I arrived here.

Most MTB gloves have a few pinholes in the palm for ventilation. If you ride in hot weather, that’s just not enough airflow to keep your palms dry. Since I hate sweaty palms, blisters, and the smell of sweaty, dirty MTB gloves, I tend to seek out gloves with lots of ventilation. Thus, over the last decade, this has become a theme:

  1. Buy ventilated-palm MTB gloves
  2. Wear them until they blow out
  3. Go to buy a new pair
  4. Find out they don’t make them anymore
  5. Wait for another company to make some
  6. Repeat

The original Fox Unabombers with the mesh panels in the palms were my first. I went through two sets before they changed the design. I rode some Dakine gloves for a bit, but they weren’t ventilated enough and they got absolutely disgusting, to the point I had to leave them outside after riding. Then One Industries released the Vapor gloves that I reviewed here, and those were great. But when I tore the palms in a hard crash, I went to get another pair and found that One Industries was out of business.

So I waited again, like a saltwater crocodile in the Puerto Vallarta marina waits for some fat gringo tourist to fall in the water.

And then 100% (or Ride 100%), makers of the Speedcraft sunglasses which prompted my knockoff Speedcraft purchase, came out with the Celium gloves.

100% Celium glove back

The Celiums are probably the most minimal gloves I’ve ever worn, but they do the job. Here’s the breakdown:

LIKES:

  • Fully ventilated Pittards (fake) leather palms
  • Very stretchy and comfortable
  • Cool in hot weather
  • Good tactile response
  • Silicone grippers on the fingertips
  • Conductive “smart” thread in the tips of the index finger and thumb for phone use
  • Affordable

DISLIKES:

  • Not that tough. They’re still holding up OK, but the stretch fabric has come unstitched from the palm in the “web” between my thumb and fingers.
  • Quirky design. They don’t have any sort of fastener, just an elastic band in the cuffs. The cuffs are also extra long, maybe for comfort or so the elastic wouldn’t wear out as fast.
  • Despite the long cuffs, the elastic is stretching out, so the cuffs are starting to sag a bit.
  • The white palms get dirty really fast (this is more of a caveat than a complaint)

100% Celium glove palm

100% Celium glove failure

Stitching issues on original Celium glove

Despite the above issues, I am pretty happy with them; so much so that when the stitching started to go I bought a second pair just to avoid another waiting-without-gloves period.

ENTER THE CELIUM 2

What I bought without realizing it is the Celium 2 (or II if you’re Roman) gloves, and it looks like they’ve improved the design. Notable updates:

  • Reinforced fabric in the thumb web area, presumably to stop the stitching from tearing out like it has in my current pair. We’ll see how it holds up.
  • A low-profile Velcro strap on the inside of the wrist, solving the elastic fatigue issue I’m having
  • Shorter cuffs thanks to the Velcro fastener above

100% Celium 2 glove back 100% Celium 2 glove reinforcementThe only complaints I have about the new Celium gloves are that the color choices are hilariously bad and the new Velcro fastener is already causing a minor issue. While it’s nice and minimal and effective, you have to grip the Velcro with your other hand in order to pull the gloves on, and that’s causing the fabric on the fingers of the right hand (or whatever glove you put on first) to “pull” as it catches on the hooked bit. It’s a minor irritation, but I could see it becoming an issue considering I haven’t even worn the gloves for a single ride.

VERDICT: Recommended with reservations

Hot Utah weather and conservative, old-guy riding make me a fan of these minimal, vented mountain bike gloves. I recommend the Ride 100% Celium 2 gloves if you ride in hot weather and you don’t mind replacing your gloves every couple of seasons. If you ride in cool weather and/or you crash a lot, you’ll probably want something tougher. Then again, the cool kids ride without gloves now, so you may not want gloves at all. But I’ve spent enough days typing with torn-up palms to have learned my lesson.