I bought two pairs of these bike gloves on Steap and Cheap in September 2007, $28, after my former Olympian bike racer friend convinced me it wasn’t sissy to ride with gloves:
“It’s not for padding,” she said. “It’s for the inevitable road rash. You want to be able to use your hands to change the bandages on the rest of you.” [1]
I ride my bike 10 miles per day, 9 days every two weeks, every day that it doesn’t rain or that I’m not sick or on vacation, so about 2000 miles per year. That’s 14000 miles on those gloves.
I would have changed them out about a year ago, but I stoner-stashed them in a box in the garage and only just found them yesterday! I was also too damn cheap to buy a new pair when I knew that I had a pair in the garage.
[1] Crashes are also the reason to shave your legs, but it took me a while longer to get around to that. I’m not racing anyone, so wind tunnel results don’t matter much to me.