Review | Merlin Bednell heated gloves

Heated grips are great this time of year but if your bike doesn’t have them or you’re swapping between various machines and want the flexibility heated gloves are a great alternative. And Merlin’s latest Bednell look a cut above the average, both in terms of cold-weather comfort and crash protection. The latter is important but often takes a second billing for winter gloves, so it’s good to see Merlin going the extra distance to score CE Level 2 protection through carefully selected materials and flexible D3O armour where it matters.

Merlin may have made its name with more retro looking kit and trad materials but it backs this up with modern tech and top-level protection for the best of both worlds in terms of style and safety. The Bednell glove is a case in point, the leather uppers and fleecy linings giving them the look of old-school motorcycling gloves while the heating elements, breathable waterproof lining and D3O armour keep you warm, dry and safe. Indeed, they’re so cosy you might even forget the electric heating is there until it gets properly bitter, the combination of Thinsulate on the upper surfaces and insulating foam on the palm enough for starters. For those properly cold mornings the button on the top offers three levels of heating, power coming from compact batteries hidden in dedicated zip pouches on the cuffs. These are bulky enough you’ll likely wear them gauntlet-style over your sleeves rather than under them, a combination that worked well with the Merlin Borderlands jacket we paired them with even it’s recommended you run your sleeves over the top in wet weather to prevent water running into them and damaging the heating elements. As you probably would anyway, the Hipora breathable waterproof lining there for extra reassurance.
The warming effect is more subtle than the RideIron gloves we tested previously but is plenty effective, even on an extended sub-zero ride around the Yorkshire Dales. To those ends you don’t necessarily notice the electric heating so much as the fact your hands just aren’t as cold as you might have expected, though we still got frozen thumbs. To be fair we’ve suffered the same with heated grips, though. Battery endurance by Merlin’s claims ranges from 3.5 hours in the warmest setting to five hours on the lowest, which tallies with what we got on a longer day out in the New Year’s cold. For those kind of trips it’s worth packing a power bank and the charging leads to keep the batteries topped up when you stop for a brew and bacon roll, though.

The Bednell gloves certainly aren’t cheap but they feel very high quality and nicely finished in terms of fit, materials used and the protection they offer. The classic style also means they don’t look out of place when combined with more traditional clothing, the discreet integration of modern tech like heating and flexible armour giving you all the creature comforts and peace of mind you could wish for without having to go all adventure textiles in the rest of your ensemble.