Review - Red Chili Jamrock Crack Gloves

Below you’ll find our review on the Red Chili Jamrock Crack Gloves. We tested every crack glove we could get our hands on and compare the pros and cons against all the other glove options out there. (Future reference, you can see every model of crack gloves on WeighMyRack.com/crackglove).

Brand Sizing – Tough without trying on. Red Chili’s size ranges have a lot of overlap. We found that if you are across 3 size ranges (fairly common) that choosing the middle seemed to work best. Those across 2 size ranges or at the border tended to size up.

• This is the hardest glove to fit from measurement out of all that we have tried. Similar to a lot of other brands, the range of each size is consistent at 2.5cm for each. (e.g. XS fits 18-20.5cm, S fits 19-21.5cm etc.) resulting in each size overlapping the one before and after it by a full centimeter.
• This means that someone with a 19.5mm size ‘fits’ XS and S, according to Red Chili. Those in higher up sizes (including myself at 21.5cm) find themselves overlapping S, M and L– all of which fit very differently. (see size comparison below)
• It’s tough to say for sure why Red Chili chose to have such a large amount of this overlap, when every other brand’s sizing run each end to end. Ultimately the net effect of this sizing scheme makes it tough to call whether you’ll be wanting to size down or up by using a single measurement. We’ve found that aiming in the center of 3 sizes is pretty good, (if not a touch baggy) and choosing the larger of two sizes for those on the border yields about the same fit.

Note: The extremely thin and soft suede of the glove does give a lot of stretch in the fingers for those who choose to undersize, but there is a limit. We haven’t seen any tear-out yet but judging by the performance of similar materials in other thin gloves, we can definitely see the potential, so be warned. We have found in the gloves we’ve tested that there is a much larger gap in size between M and L (pictured below).

• We’ve also found that due to its stretchy nature this gloves lends itself to being overtightened and cutting off circulation, which is something to watch out for. Thankfully the wrist strap is very long and offers a ton of flexibility when dialing between sizes.

Hand coverage – Average to slightly above. Knuckle coverage suffers noticeably when sized down, but back of wrist stays mostly protected. Zero thumb protection.

• Depending on where you choose in your range, the amount of rubber across the knuckles can range from plenty to not quite enough. We have found the ‘sweet spot’ for most folks in regular hand jams to be at or below the mid mark in their fit range, while those doing more fists preferred to size mid to up.
• Wrist coverage for sized down gloves does shorten a little, and can leave a bit of the outer wrist bone exposed if you have tall hands, while mid-sized gloves provide tons of great, flexible protection.
• Like most gloves on the market, these choose to completely forego thumb protection. If you’re expecting to use these in fists or stacks, make sure you bring tape to supplement.

Jamming Performance – Moderate to good in most jams below fists. Great padding in sharp cracks for a thin glove. The Jamrock is a bit too soft for flaring fist jams and a bit unstructured to build really solid stacks.

• In thinner to wide hands the Red Chili Jamrock has performed pretty well. The rubber is nice and sticky once it makes contact and because the suede is so thin (thinnest we’ve measured) the 1mm of rubber thickness gets to deform and create friction as you would expect.
• We found these performed best in medium to large hands on splitter and irregular cracks. The very flexible wrist coverage provided from the microfiber combined with a strategic cutaway in the rubber backing also helps with wrist flexibility without compromising jamming position. When tape is added underneath, they also do a decent job helping those with thinner hands fit into rattly jams, thanks to the silicone dots reducing the glove shifting.
• When it comes to fists and wider the Jamrock was ok when slightly oversized, though like all gloves lacking thumb coverage they simply can’t go it alone without tape. The thin glove/thicker rubber combo Red Chili went with helps performance when it comes to flat and flexible situations, but when it comes to building hand stacks, yanking hard on them, and twisting into odd fist pods, they simply aren’t robust enough to hold up to the forces and usually deform and twist mid-jam, losing contact with the rock. You can add rigidity from tape, but we found it has to go outside the glove, which sort of isn’t as much the point of having crack gloves.

Notable Features – Things that are only found on the Red Chili Jamrock Crack Glove

• The Jamrock is the only glove on the market that has attempted to combat the issue of a glove’s tendency to slip on the hand during a jam. Other brands using microfiber or leather that don’t have this feature can tend to get a bit slippy once they are broken in and they get heated up from a session of jamming. It isn’t much, and we must say that it is something that not everyone has even reported noticing. At first glance, these silicone ‘dots’ didn’t seem like they would help much in this endeavor, but we have actually found them to slip noticeably less, especially when the glove is oversized or when the weather is hot and sweaty.
• The narrow, tapered strap is completely backed by the thin microfiber of the glove, which might seem like an obvious decision, but not every glove does this. This makes the wrist strap a lot more comfortable against the skin no matter what size you adjust the wrist to, and because it is so narrow, you can pull a lot of strap through to tighten it if you have particularly thin wrists.
• Because the difference of stiffness between the glove suede and the rubber backing is so great, Red Chili made a great decision and provided a cutaway at the bottom to allow the wrist to bend naturally. Other brands have chosen to either put a gap or a slit in the rubber to marginally increase articulation, or in the case of Singing Rock, even completely remove wrist coverage completely. This cutaway paired with the soft microfiber makes these the most comfortable on the wrist that we’ve tried.

We should say that overall we have had the Jamrock crack gloves the least amount of time of all the gloves we’ve tested so far, though it has still been over a year. In that time we’ve found that like most thin gloves, they are at their best in a splitter hand situation on even cracks. When worn undersized, we have found them performing well in thin jams despite their chunkier rubber for their class, and when stepping into cracks with uneven or sharp lips, they were one of our favorites because they just seem to stay with your skin a little better. Not quite like tape that literally attaches to you, but enough to notice when the wrenching in and around corners became necessary, or for those with sweaty hands.

When jamming in conglomerate and sharper irregular cracks, the thicker rubber does offer a noticeable amount of padding, and because the rest of the glove is so thin the Jamrock can still deform and squish into corners and jams on routes with polished crux features a bit better than gloves with thinner rubber.

As cracks widen and flare a bit these start to have many of the same issues we’ve found in all thin gloves. Despite the thicker rubber, they lack the structure to hold shape in flaring jams and can still bunch and lose rock contact, though maybe slightly less than their thinner cousins. We have found these gloves to handle undertaping better than most, thanks to their stretchy finger loops and anti-slip dots, though they still don’t hove the same response and structure as a thicker glove on sharp jams. Building hand stacks can work out ok by taping over the gloves to add rigidity, but at the cost of loss of friction from the rubber, at which point why not tape literally anything between your hand and a tape glove?

On slick jams these have a similar grip to most gloves using a version of climbing shoe rubber (Grivel Star Crack, or both Ocún models) though due to their thinness, really perform best on perfect hands and don’t do well at all when flaring pods come into play. We tried them on narrow limestone cracks specifically and found they weren’t quite robust enough to absorb the full brunt of sharp crack edges as we had hoped, but did grip better than other thin gloves thanks to the 1mm of shoe rubber backing.

When comparing to all other gloves on the the thin/flexible side of the market, the Jamrock definitely stands out as a chunkier, more padded and stiffer glove. They’re tough to size correctly, though sizing down a bit hasn’t produced too many issues for our testers. Durability of the finger loops is a bit of a question mark, though we haven’t personally witnessed any blowouts, so those expecting to really wrench and abuse a pair of crack gloves should be wary. Overall we’ve found them to be a comfortable wearing glove that adds a bit of extra padding for their weight class, and sticks to the hand a bit closer to tape than any suede glove we’ve tried.