Gear Review – Leki Griffin Prime 3D gloves
Sporty but comfortable, sleek but warm, the Leki Griffin Prime 3D strike a nice balance for the everyday skier.
Gloves are one of the most important bits of ski gear you can own, so it is vital you get them right. Having cold or wet hands when skiing is not just uncomfortable, it can be dangerous with the risks of frostbite and impact from bits of kit, sticks and snows, and even the snow itself.
The Leki Prime 3D glove is an excellent answer to all of the problems posed by the mountains. Well designed, it will keep you warm and dry, and stave off the risks of any impact injuries that are all too easy when skiing without gloves.
This is Skiing Unlocked’s review of the Leki Griffin Prime 3D ski gloves.
Leki are a German brand that have been well established in the ski industry for nearly 80 years now. Founded in Dettingen, near Stuttgart, the firm is now based in neighbouring Kirchheim. Initially designing ski poles, the brand broke new ground in the ski glove market with their unique Trigger system in 1998, merging ski pole and glove-making sciences to create a triumph of comfort and safety.
Huge success has followed, with World Cup stars like Mikael Shiffrin winning World Cup race after World Cup race as a Leki athlete. As with many ski brands, and seemingly totally with glove brands, Leki are shaped by the speed and adrenaline of the World Cup circuit. Many of their designs draw technology or inspiration from the downhill courses of Val d’Isere and the Hahnenkahmm where one slip can result in serious injury and the pursuit of speed is everything.
The Griffin Prime 3D is therefore no different, and it is striking how immediate this inspiration is even as you look at it on the rack, especially in white and neon green as I was trying. It is immediately sleek, svelte and streamlined, standing out against the other gloves as uniform in the black leather patina as it is possible to be. As you pick the glove up, you notice how light it is, but begin to notice that perhaps it is not as sleek as first impressions … well, impressed.
To say the glove is bulky is to do it a great disservice. Sure, it is not as slim as you might have first thought, but there is good reason for this – it is filled to the brim with Primaloft Gold insulation, one of the highest standards of synthetic insulation available on the market. Slipping into the gloves is like putting on your favourite big jumper on a cold winters day, in front of the fire, with a hot water bottle. It is instantly noticeable and wonderful to experience. These are gloves designed for cold conditions.
Like most high end performance gloves, they use leather throughout, focused on the palm – where the grip benefits of leather over synthetic are put to good use – and across the back of the hand, where the sturdiness and ruggedness of the material suits it ideally. As always, leather is excellent at keeping the rain, wind and cold out, but must be maintained, so remember to wax your leather gloves about once a season – I do mine right before I head away on my first trip of the year.
Neoprene is used for the cuff, and this gives it a stretch and pliability that can be missing from other gloves. The cuff is slightly weird, however, as it is not quite big enough to go over the cuff of your jacket entirely, especially if wearing a sports watch, but also not quite small enough to go under it, either. I spent most of my time with the glove gauntlet over the top of my jacket cuff, and that seemed to work okay for the most part.
The other key drawback I found was the colour trim, especially on the fingers. These are just printed on, and I found that they were starting to peel off even after just a day’s wear. Admittedly I was using the gloves when adjusting bindings multiple times over the course of the day, but it won’t take too many goes carrying a pair of skis to and from après or the hotel for the same to take effect. This was actually quite disappointing, even given the minor scale of the inconvenience, but I would have expected better from such a premium brand.
Final Thoughts
Overall, these were a very well designed and useful bit of kit. Supremely warm, the goatskin leather provided a tough and rugged face fabric to withstand the worst the mountain can throw at you, whilst retaining that sleek, racer-like look.
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