Far from forgotten, the sawn-off bike glove is still very much with us, but judging by the dwindling numbers we see out on the trails it's time this iconic garment was given it's dues.
It was only when I got my first pair of gloves that I felt 'proper'. The idea behind losing the fingers was three-fold: feel, so that you could apply your brakes and change gear with delicate precision, coolness- the extremities are a great place to shed excess heat, and looks. In the winter you had to cover up, and if you were a downhiller you wore full finger gloves for protection, but at some point the lines got blurred.
The proliferation of downhill style in XC clothing, the abundance of lighter, cooler full-fingered gloves, the influx of full-bounce causing more 'extreme' riding to enter the XC'ers vocabulary and again, looks- all these factors began the death nell for fingerless.
On a real sunny day there's nothing like thin, cool fingerless gloves. I've got to admit I don't own any anymore, I like the protection and comfort my full-fingered Fox's provide, but when I think back to those glorious days I couldn't imagine a world without them.