hey i was just wondering what the fault was with your guards? I bought some a few months back and really like them but the stitching is coming away. They have offered a return, but just out of interest I wondered if you'd had the same fault?

the glvoes are made waterproof by a layer of plastic (according to the vendor) and this is completely non breathable. As a result after 1 day on the slopes the gloves are soaked on the inside and it took days for them to dry out

Thought I'd post my thoughts on the Flexmeter golves with inbuilt double wrist protection that I bought for my first snowboarding holiday as I haven't been able to find a similar overview elsewhere.

Up to now in Sno!zone I'd been using Dakine wrist guards with some old ski gloves I've had lying around as general winter gloves for years and had found the combination to be OK as an affordable wrist protection solution, but not entirely comfortable and after reading numerous forums about the better products available, decided that while they'd served their purpose up to now, they just wouldn't cut it any longer.

Initially I bought the standalone Flexmeter double wrist guards but ended up sending them back and upgrading to the gloves with inbuild guards due to an unfortunately manufacturing fault with the guards, plus having taken one of the guards to a shop to try and find some gloves to go with them, realised that due to the sheer bulk of them, I simply couldn't find a pair of gloves big enough to go over them that didn't then fingers way to long for my hands

Very glad I made the desicion because as far as I'm concerned, the gloves are better than the standalone guards plus seperate gloves in a number of ways.

1) for a start it eliminated the issue of trying to find a sensible sized pair of gloves as they were by default the correct size for my hands
2) with the gloves, unlike the standalone guards, the lower wrist support is removable if you feel you need some extra flexibility, although personally I rather like the added feeling of security that the lower wrist guard offers
3) they are extremely warm and as far as I can tell are fully waterproof, the only issue I had was that even in the freezing temeratures of the mountains they were sometimes almost too warm and felt like they were retaining sweat to a certain degree!
4) the wrist guard is tightened by 2 adjustable straps (same kind that you get on rucksacks, for lack of the correct name for them) rather than velcro as with the standalone guards, so no problems with velcro becoming loose over time or with velcro catching the inside of a seperate glove lining
5) so much more convenient only having to remove one item if you need your hand back rather than having to mess about with a seperate glove and guard

All in all, I highly recommend them, despite numerous heavy tumbles over the course of my holiday that resulted in badly aching shoulders and bruised ribs, my wrist survived the week completely unscathed

the only problems with them that I could pick up on is that if you're not careful the upper splint can press slightly on the bony protrusion on the outside of the wrist when you hold your arm at certain angles, but I countered this by buying some cheap neoprene wrist straps on ebay and in fact on the last day of my holiday suddenly realised I'd forgotten to put these on under the gloves and hadn't even noticed so it's a minor issue at worst. Also the straps that tighten the supports can be a bit hard to grab once you have the gloves on, but the plastic end caps on the straps have a convenient groove in the plastic that makes it easy to grab with your teeth to tighten them, whether this is by design or not I don't know but it worked well for me.

The more prominent issue is the simple fact that they are a bit pricey, but if you're not on a tight budget then I doubt you could find a better balance of protection, comfort and convenience. Some might aruge they are a bit on the bulky side as they do cover a fair length of the lower arm, but I never found that to be an issue myself.