Review: Royal Racing Tybyn Trail Gloves

Published: 4th June 2013 | By AngusMcIntosh

Royal Racing’s Tybyn gloves on paper seem like the obvious choice for a UK trail riding/enduro glove but as they say… The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

We let our resident pudding eating extraordinaire Angus loose with the Tybyn gloves to see what he had to say!

First Impressions

From previous experience with some other “lightweight” gloves from the Royal Racing 2013 range I must admit I had pretty high expectations from the Tybyn gloves straight out the starting blocks.

Initially the name Tybyn caught my interest. A few Google searches later I was still completely clueless to what it means or how you actually pronounce it but I did discover Tybyn is a tiny clump of trees in Sweden (Google Maps link here...) and that the word Tybyn is mentioned once or twice in a holy book that I’ve never heard of. As of this day I am still none of the wiser to quite why Royal chose to call it Tybyn. If anyone knows what it means, feel free to leave a comment below and enlighten me!

The gloves are super lightweight and thin on both the palm and rear which sort of pigeon holes them into the Summer, Spring, Autumn side of things. Unless your hands are made of leather I don’t think even the hardiest of souls will be using these in the winter as the wind blows right through!

A few technical details...

The gloves are constructed on the rear from a 4 way stretch material and the palm from a 0.8mm thick Rema palm with breathable 2/2 Mesh fourchettes and a microfiber thumb wipe. This makes for a very breathable and lightweight combination.

Its great to see added little extras like the goggle/glasses wiper on the back of the index finger. It’s not something that I’ve ever seen in a form quite like this before, but it seems to work pretty flawlessly when out on the trails!

If your not the kind of person who likes anything that interferes on the wrist, the Tybyn’s don’t feature any kind of top enclosure. Some loose elastic is instead charged with holding the gloves in the right place. I’m a firm believer in this arrangement but from experience I would say it’s absolutely essential to make sure you get the right size!

The graphics printed on the back of the gloves are incredibly thin and consequently don’t hinder hand movement in any way but ensure that you are always looking fly out on the trails.

The Ride

As I’ve previously mentioned 0.8mm isn’t very thick for the palm of a glove. Comparing it to the Signatures that I’ve reviewed previously it is 0.3mm thicker and you can definitely feel it. The Tybyn’s feel far less “disposable“ and even after a month of riding the palms were in pretty good nick.

As for comfort these are up there with the best and they certainly performed amicably in there roll as gloves in stopping blister and callouses at the source. I don’t think I strictly took a big palm sliding crash in the Tybyn’s but I am certain they would stop you removing your fingertips if things were to take a turn for the worse.

Conclusion.

The Tybyn gloves offer fantastic comfort and versatility across 3 seasons with some cool styling with the added bonus of that cool goggle wiper! I have in the past and will continue to champion gloves without any wrist fastenings as for me they provide far more comfort especially if you ride with a watch!

The palm is pretty thin but hard wearing and has stood up well to a variety of riding types from me in the last 2 months with no complaints! Best of all if your fashion conscious the gloves are available in black, red and blue... and even better if your a lady! Royal even make a range of female specific Tybyns!

Comfy, Breathable and hard wearing. The Royal Tybyn gloves tick all the boxes I look for in a mountain bike trail glove for a bargain price of £25.

RRP. £24.99

Royal Racing are distributed in the UK by Decade Europe.

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