
I have a couple hundred miles on these and really like them so far. I've been wearing Giro Jag and Bravo the past year or so, and decided to upgrade to the Monaco. The fit is very similar, and has the pad inside the thumb which is what drew me to Giro. The palm is holding up well and has broken in very comfortably. It gives good grip, and the cushion is nice. The back is comfortable and light, definitely summer weight. Overall a solid pair of gloves, especially at Western's sale price.
So I chose to run with white bar tape by choice. All the gloves I own all have black palms. Theoretically it should be ok, but when the mitts get sweaty the leather dye will transfer onto the pristine white bars. That set my search for gloves with white palms. Happy to say, white palms, white bars!
The velcro frayed the glove fabric despite due diligence to avoid this. The dye stained my palms after summer rides. The gloves stiffened when washed by hand in cold water and left to air dry. Although the leather loosened during rides, it stiffened between rides until the leather split in the palms. They lasted a summer.
The gel in these gloves provide good comfort. Fit is excellent. It looks like they may begin wearing prematurely with the nylon portion beginning to curl around the ends of the finger holes. Can't tell for sure but seem not as durable as I'd like.
I am probably a medium level road biker so I am not putting in heavy miles but I love having the padded Monaco II Gel Gloves which takes the pressure off my hands so that is one less thing to worry about while out for longer rides.
I wear these only for rides over 50 miles as they have caused me to only rely on them for necessity.
When I first received these, they were a little tight, but felt great. After only a few sweaty rides they started hardening when dry, despite my handwashing. Even leather conditioner has not helped much. I still squeeze my hands into them to get my money's worth and eventually they soften up enough to be decently comfortable. The black palms stain my hands to this day, after hundreds of hours in them.
I expected an improvement over the original Monacos, and have seen only better quality control and slightly better durability.
My favorite gloves as late have been those made by Giro. 1. The Monaco II has lots of padding, which I find I need/want. 2. Once they're on my hands, I hardly notice them. 3. The tab design makes these gloves easy to remove without tearing seams. 4. The leather palms hold up better than the faux suede. The Monaco II replaced my last favorite pair of gloves, also Giro. I've tried others, but keep going back to the Giro gloves.