Review: MaxiFlex and MaxiTherm Gloves

After being kindly sent a pair of each style of gloves to trial by Landmark Trading, I can safely say that they have held up as well as could be expected from the level of use that they saw. 

How many things can you say about a pair of gloves? 1000 words is probably going to be optimistic for something that a lot of us probably take for granted but in reality, the biggest problem that I normally have is losing them rather than wearing them out. With both pairs, I have kept them and tried to use them for a range of tasks to give a fair enough review. Both pairs now have holes in them but on the whole the rubber grip has lasted longer that the normal builders merchant type gloves which always seemed to get caught in friction hitches when you didn't want it to!

The good parts are the Maxiflex gloves actually fitted properly and, with dotted/raised contact area give a really good level of grip. Half the time you didn't notice that they were on. Used them for most climbing jobs and had no problems, they were easy enough to use in the tree and you could feel and open hardware which was handy. They would not hold up to any form of running ropes but I found them to be great to use when climbing. 

The MaxiTherm gloves were considerably thicker and also seemed to be a lot bigger which gave a poorer fit despite them both being a size 10. They were brilliantly warm though and could happily use them on the ground in the cold conditions that we had last Winter. There was pretty much no chance of doing anything too refined in them though (putting pins back in the RopeRunner) as the movement was sacrificed for the warmth. Gave a surprising level of protection when chipping but when using them on spiky branches like Hawthorn there would still be the odd one the crept through.

Both gloves have decent elastic on the cuff which has held up well and stops slipping which although a minor point, is worth noting.

I'd definitely not recommend a single pair over the other but would say that having both pairs should cover most eventualities and for the price, you do get a level of quality that makes it worth the purchase.