The Rab Khroma Tour Gore-Tex Gloves

The Rab Khroma Tour gloves might be the most underrated glove in the winter sports industry. Waterproof Gore-Tex Active liner, Pittards Armortan leather and Primaloft Gold make these a fantastic mid-winter ski glove. I’ve put a season and a half of touring, snowboarding and heli guiding in these gloves and I’ve no doubt they will last another season of abuse and ask for more.

Overview

Material: Pittards Armor-Tan Leather
Insulation: 60gsm PrimaLoft® Gold Insulation with Grip Control (90% Recycled Content) on palm
Membrane: Gore-Tex Active
Size Tested: Large
Usage: 100 days of Splitboarding, Resort Riding, and Heli-boarding

The Khroma Toure Gore-Tex?

Rab’s Khroma Tour GTX gloves fit in the middle of their three glove line-up. It is a lightweight mid-winter ski mountaineering glove built with Pittards Armor-Tan leather for durability, Gore-Tex Active lining to keep your hands dry in the steep and deep, pre-curved fingers for rope and pole handling, and just enough Primaloft gold to keep your hands warm. I’ve worn these gloves for over 100 days in the last two seasons and don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to put another 100 days in them.

What is Pittards Armor Tan Leather?

The Rab Khroma Tour gloves are made with Pittards Amor-Tan leather. This is a goat leather, the industry standard for durability, that has been treated with microscopic ceramic armor plating to increase its durability. I’ve no idea how Pittards coated its leather with ceramic but it sure sounds neat and these gloves still look really good after 100 days so it must be doing something, right?

The back of each thumb has a soft suede for nose wiping. After this many days the suede pile now lays mostly flat and isn’t so soft. To be honest, farmer blows are a far better solution to a runny nose.

Stitching and seams of the gloves is found on the outside of the glove. Over time the seam has compressed quite a lot but this makes no difference. Grip is still great and the seams are not splitting at all.

Leather ski gloves will eventually dry out, I do not care what coating they have. I treat the Rab Khroma Tour gloves often with snoseal. As you can see in the photos, I’ve over treated a few places and there are stains in the leather. This does not affect performance at all, just appearance by making dark spots.

Pittards was one of the most well known leather manufacturers in the world. They used to make gloves for the Royal Family but have since filed for insolvency. Grab a pair of these while you still can.

rab khroma tour gore-tex glove palms — Palms of Pittards Armortan Leather

Gore-Tex Active

Waterproofing duties for the Rab Khroma Tour gloves is handled by a 2-Layer stretch woven outer with GORE-TEX® ACTIVE ePE waterproof membrane. I wore the gloves a few times prior to waxing them and my hands stayed dry. Even now, with multiple waxing and wears, my hands do not get wet unless I wear them touring uphill.

Insulation

The Rab Khroma Tour GTX gloves are filled with 60gsm of PrimaLoft Gold insulation with grip control. This is Primaloft’s top of the line insulation and is more than adequate to insulate for most coastal winter days. Rab places most of the insulation on the back of the hand along with a fleece pile liner. This keeps the wearers hand insulated against the elements while allowing for thinner palms for better dexterity when using ski poles and handling ropes or ice axes.

Grip Control, in a nutshell, is the non-slip version of Primaloft. This means the insulation is fully attached to the shell of the glove. There is no slippage between the insulation and outer layers.

The Small Stuff

There is a fantastic pull cord attached to the inside wrist and the velcro closure flap. It is easy to handle with the other glove on and also doubles as a great tab to hang the gloves from when airing them out at the end of the day.

Keeping the gloves closed is handled by hook and loop fasteners. The closure flap has a small tan leather tab and wraps across the back of the hand. Thans to the generously long closure flap, the opening is quite big and makes for pulling the glove off and on very easy.

The 2-Layer woven outer has a little bit of stretch. It provides a slightly snug fit when closed tightly. There’s no snow getting inside the gloves but the material does nto stretch like a neoprene cuff if that’s what you are used to.

The middle finger of each glove has a small tab made of Hypalon. These are for hanging your gloves with a carabiner when not being worn in the field. By hanging them here, the opening of the glove stays downward and less likely to fill with snow.

The Rab Khroma Tour Gloves in Use

I have used the Khroma Tour gloves splitboarding, heliboarding and resort riding. For the past two seasons they have been my go-to glove. Warm down to -10 and below if I am staying active. I do not wear them on the uphill unless it is colder than -10. Though they are not excessively insulated, my hands heat up quite a lot and so I will often have a pair of gloves for the uphill and reserve the Khroma Tour for the downhill.

At first the fingers were a little snug width wise but the leather has relaxed just enough that they fit perfectly. I normally wear a size 9 which is considered a medium but the large in the Rab Khroma Tour fits me perfect.

The short cuffs fit under every jacket I own and play nicely with Rab’s wrist gaiters on their Khroma jacket line. If the glove were any shorter I would worry that snow ingress would happen. Any longer and it would be a traditional gauntlet like glove. The glove does however sit right over top of my watch. There’s really no way to work around this with a winter glove.

Pittards leather is tried and true as is Rab’s reputation for quality. A previous pair of Rab gloves I used lasted at least 100 days and then were passed on to a friend who has been using them as his main gloves. I don’t see why these gloves won’t last just as long. I’ve now put 100 days on the Khroma Tour glove and will undoubtedly put a lot more on them next season.

Who are the Rab Khroma Tour GTX gloves for?

The Rab Khroma Tour GTX glove is perhaps the best glove on the market for the skier or rider looking for a dextrous glove that will stand up to a lot of abuse while ski mountaineering or just general resort riding.

Interested in picking up a pair? Head on over to Rab, you won’t be disappointed. Looking for more Rab reviews, head on over to our search.

Disclaimer

BlackSheep Adventure sports was provided with a free pair of Rab Khroma Tour GTX gloves to review. This in no way affected our opinion nor the review.