IMHO KH gloves are difficult to beat. They are the only gloves with incorporated wrist guards I have ever tried but I think they are just fantastic. Mine were originally fingered but with so much use they didn’t take too long before they became fingerless. They are slowly breaking apart but hopefully I might be able to use them for another year (they are already 2+ years old).
I will definitely buy them again when the time comes…
Until recently I have always ridden with basic skater wrist guards.
After injuring a finger (unrelated to unicycling), I bought a pair of Hillbilly gloves for extra protection, encouraged by the opportunity to buy a brand new pair on Gumtree at a substantial discount. They are engineered from top quality materials and about as heavy duty as would be practical, yet still very flexible and comfortable.
The unicyclist who sold them to me said the insert interfered with his grip of the handle. They worked fine for me. Differences in riding style I guess. I only use the left glove most of the time anyway because I haven’t yet adapted my wrist mounted cycle computer to the glove, so still use my old wrist guard on the right.
I quite like the combination. Most of my riding is on and around the street. Whenever I have gone down at speed it has been the left side that takes the fall. Maybe it is related to the moment I choose to step off. Having the fingers exposed on the other hand provides a bit of dexterity for adjusting my lights.
The newer KH gloves with real leather are a lot more durable than the older blue ones (the ones made from some sort of synthetic leather, with the gel pad). They still run small, though, so you need to order at least a size larger than you would expect. Even the XL is a little small on me.
The gloves with rigid wrist and palm protectors (like the Hillbillys) are overkill for me, and get in the way of holding the saddle and braking. The KH semi-rigid wrist wrap has been enough for me to avoid any wrist injuries in my many crashes.
I have the fingerless Hillbilly gloves (less hardcore than the full-fingered version) and they do the job for me. I take what people say about the plastic splint getting in the way but I don’t have a problem with them using either the saddle handle or handlebars.
The nice thing about the plastic palm/wrist section is that they slide. I’ve done a few superman dives off my 36er onto the road, at speed, and just slid on my hands and knees (wearing hard plastic knee pads too of course!) before getting up and continuing. I’ve done the same trick without any gloves/kneepads a couple of times and the results were not so pretty…
I’d like to try the Pulse gloves one day but I’d rather try them on before buying. So instead I have a second pair of Hillbillies still in their packaging for when my current pair die.