You’ve probably landed here because you’re tired of riding gloves that either feel too thick and clumsy or fall apart after a few months of daily use. Maybe you’ve already gone through a cheap pair or two, watching the stitching give up or the palm go slick with sweat halfway through a ride. If that sounds familiar, you’re in the right place.
I went through that exact cycle before picking up the Five RS3 Evo. A few budget gloves promised comfort and grip, then quietly failed at both once real heat and real traffic got involved. I wanted something that could handle daily riding without turning my hands into a sweaty, sliding mess by midday.
FIVE GLOVES RS3 EVO
Lightweight urban gloves with strong grip, breathable comfort, and TPR knuckle protection. Built for daily city riding, not rain.
After using the RS3 Evo with my Honda Beat, across markets, errands, and long stretches of stop-and-go traffic, I can finally say I found a glove that just works for everyday riding. This review covers exactly how it performed, where it shines, and where it falls short before you buy.
My Testing Ground
I’ve been wearing the RS3 Evo every day on my Honda Beat, the kind of stop-and-go, sun-up-to-sun-down riding that wears gear out fast. Short trips to the market, longer rides across town, hours stuck in traffic with the throttle barely cracked open. This is not pretty riding. There are no scenic mountain roads here, no long highway runs. This is pure city and town riding, the kind most of us actually do every day. It’s just the daily grind of getting from one place to another in heat, dust, and unpredictable city traffic.
That’s actually the best test a glove can go through. A lot of gear looks great in a photo or does fine on a single weekend ride, then falls apart after weeks of real use. If a glove is going to let you down, it’s going to happen here, in the boring, repeat riding that makes up most of your time on the road. So I didn’t go easy on these gloves. I wore them the way I’d wear any pair I actually rely on, day after day, with no special treatment.
Grip That Doesn’t Fade
This is where the RS3 Evo earns its keep. The palm is synthetic leather with a TPR slider built in, and it holds the handlebar the same way two hours into a ride as it does in the first five minutes. There’s no slipping, no need to keep adjusting my hold every few minutes like I’ve had to do with cheaper gloves before. That kind of steady grip matters more than people think, until they don’t have it anymore.
Even with sweaty palms from the heat, which happens almost every day here, the grip stayed firm. I never felt like I had to squeeze the handlebar harder than I should just to feel safe in traffic. That matters a lot for city riding, where you’re constantly making small moves, braking, speeding up, and squeezing through gaps that open and close in seconds. A glove that loses grip in moments like that becomes a real problem fast, and this one never gave me that trouble at any point during testing.
The synthetic leather also seems built to last. After a lot of use, there’s no peeling and no wearing thin in the spots where my fingers wrap around the grip. It still feels new in the areas that matter most for control, which says a lot about the materials Five used here.
Hands That Actually Stay Dry
Here’s the thing that surprised me most: my hands don’t get wet inside these gloves. To be clear, I’m not talking about rain. These aren’t made for that, and I’ll explain why in a bit. I’m talking about my own sweat, which honestly matters more for daily city riding in our heat than rain protection does for most riders.
The back of the glove uses a stretchy, breathable fabric that moves with your hand and, more importantly, lets air pass through instead of trapping heat and sweat against your skin. After a full day of riding the Beat through traffic, stopping and starting, sitting under the sun at red lights, I’d take these gloves off and my hands were dry. Not damp, not wrinkled, not sticky the way they get in cheaper all-leather gloves that trap every bit of heat your hands give off.
This might sound like a small thing, but if you’ve ever ridden in gloves that turn your hands into a swamp by noon, you know exactly how much breathing room like this can change your ride. It affects your grip, your comfort, and honestly your mood by the end of a long day. Dry hands also mean less smell building up over time, which is a quiet win nobody talks about until they’re stuck with gloves that start to stink after a few weeks of regular use.
Protection Without the Bulk
The TPR knuckle guards do their job without making the glove feel heavy or stiff. You still get full finger movement for working the clutch and brake, which matters a lot on something like the Beat where you’re always on the controls in heavy traffic. Stiff, bulky gloves can actually work against you in the city, slowing down how fast you react on the brake lever or making it harder to feel exactly how hard you’re squeezing.
This isn’t race-glove level protection, and it doesn’t try to be. The RS3 Evo is built as everyday armor: enough to matter if you go down at city speeds, without turning your hands into bricks that get in the way of normal riding. The palm slider adds a bit of extra peace of mind too, giving your hand somewhere to slide instead of catch if you ever do fall at low speed. It’s a small feature, but it shows the glove was made with real falls in mind, not just dressed up with protection labels for show.
Fit and Everyday Usability
The Velcro strap and pull tab make these gloves genuinely fast to put on and take off, which matters more than people think when you’re hopping on and off the bike all day for errands. I probably put these gloves on and off more times in one day than most riders do in a week, given how often I stop for quick tasks, and the pull tab saves real time compared to gloves that need careful tugging every time.
The touchscreen-friendly fingertips also worked well with my phone. No need to pull a glove off just to check a map or reply to a message at a red light, which is a small convenience that adds up over a full day of riding. The fit runs true to size for most hands, though if your palms are on the wider side, you may want to size up, since the glove leans toward a tighter fit overall. That snug fit does help with grip and feel, but it’s worth trying on first if your hands run wider than average.
Final Verdict
If you ride every day in hot, humid weather, especially on something like a Honda Beat where you’re always on and off the bike, the Five RS3 Evo is one of the easiest pieces of gear I can recommend. The grip holds up through sweat and long hours, the breathing room is real and easy to feel, and the level of protection fits exactly what this glove is meant for: everyday city riding, not track days or long highway trips.
Just don’t expect it to handle rain. This is a warm-weather, city-use glove first, and it does that job better than most gloves at this price. If you want something for downpours, you’ll need to look elsewhere, since breathable materials and waterproofing don’t really mix well in one glove. But for most of your riding days, especially in weather where heat is the bigger daily problem, this is a glove you’ll forget you’re even wearing, in the best way possible.
FIVE GLOVES RS3 EVO
Lightweight urban gloves with strong grip, breathable comfort, and TPR knuckle protection. Built for daily city riding, not rain.
For the price, the grip, and the comfort over long days in the saddle, the RS3 Evo has earned a permanent spot in my gear bag, and it’s the pair I reach for without a second thought before heading out.
