I had the opportunity to review the Triple 8′s Downhill Gloves, and Triple 8 Slide Gloves. During this review I will be going over both products and comparing the gloves with each other to see how they perform. Both of Triple 8′s Gloves are made of full top-grain leather for protection as well as a breathable fabric on the top to keep your hands cool and sweat free. The glove features engineered fingertips for ease of movement and grabs, and are reinforced with Kevlar fingertips for added protection. Both gloves come standard with PU replaceable slide pucks but unlike the Downhill Gloves, the Triple 8 Slide Gloves feature a slide bar for the fingers and a small slide puck that attaches to the thumbs.Triple 8 Downhill Slide GlovesThe Downhill Slide Gloves are a newer addition to the category and are streamlined for a sleek fit without compromising protection. The knuckle is neoprene padded with a molded Triple 8 badge to protect the knuckle from damage. The glove features a shorter cuff with a wrap around strap for added support at high speeds. Unlike the Triple 8 Slide Gloves, the Downhill Gloves do not have a slide bar for the fingers, instead the gloves give the user more freedom and better handling. To prove this I switched the roles of the gloves and used the Slide Gloves for downhill and found that with the added slide pucks it makes it harder to quickly grab on to the board at high speeds as the slide bar may get in the way when I need to quickly grab my board when ripping around corners. Because there is no Slide Bar the Downhill Slide Gloves allow the user to more easily and comfortably grab the board for stability when ripping around tight corners. In the end I found that the Downhill gloves perform very well for downhill and high speeds as they are more streamline and give your fingers more freedom to grip the board when that extra bit of stability is needed. As downhill gloves they do not spend as much time in contact with the ground as their Sliding counterpart so removing the extra pucks for better handling is a smart exchange.

Triple 8 Slide GlovesThe Triple 8 Slide Gloves are made to provide more stability and durability during prolonged slides, they feature more leather and two additional slide pucks (one on the thumb and a slide bar across the fingers) for added protection as they will be seeing more pavement than their Downhill counterpart. The Kevlar covers a little bit more of the fingers and almost entirely covers the back of the thumb. The gloves have a longer cuff secured by a wrap around strap just like the downhill gloves. These gloves already feel much beefier and heavier with the added pucks. After Trying out a few slides with the Side Gloves I found that since I can place my entire hand on the pavement while sliding I get more stability when sliding. The one thing that definitely surprised is that even after all the sliding that I have been doing, the gloves are showing very little wear and tear, the fingers do not come in contact with the pavement and the slide pucks still look fairly clean. To show this I only used one of the slide pucks so that I can show how little wear shows after a few good days of sliding.After all is said and done both the Slide and Downhill Gloves perform exceptionally well. The gloves are durable and provide exceptional protection, the construction of the gloves themselves allows for more freedom of movement in comparison to other full leather longboard gloves. They allow air to flow through the gloves to keep your hands cool and dry. Both Gloves present very well and simply look awesome. It’s hard for these gloves to look worn and dirty as dirt and scratches do not show very much on black which is always a plus. Triple 8 makes all their equipment to be top of the line and these gloves are no exception.