SEALSKINZ Waterproof All Weather Cycle Glove

Product Information

Finding the best winter cycling gloves is a lifelong project for most cyclists. Unlike other sports, cycling requires holding your hands out in front of your body without moving for long periods of time. It's the hardest test of any gloves and it's a challenge I've thrown the full weight of this publication into solving. I talked to brands, I ran gloves under the faucet, and more important than any of that, I rode for hours on end no matter what the weather looked like. I tested every pair of gloves I could in cold and wet weather to see what worked and what didn't. Knit gloves are a staple of winter riding in the cold and wet and there is a somewhat endless range of choices for them. Lots of companies make them and I've yet to find a particular advantage to one brand. The Giro Xnetic H20 gets the nod because they have a high visibility colour and some of the best pricing. There are lovers of these style gloves that manage to make them work through an entire winter. I run cold though and I find that in the US Pacific Northwest, these are strictly an option for milder days. Castelli often makes use of Gore-tex fabrics and then builds products that are similar to Gore Cycling but with a performance twist. That is the case here as well and the Castelli Espresso GT gloves use a traditional waterproof Gore membrane just like the Gore C5 gloves. The two gloves also share similarities in weight and use but Castelli focuses on hard and fast performance riding. Just so I'm clear though, the Sportful lobster gloves still leak. For some reason Sportful didn't tape all the seams and water will work its way through. The advantage is that even when water comes through, there's no insulation to hold that water. Of course that also points to the other negative of the Sportful Lobster gloves, you will need another layer inside of them. When it's raining and just above freezing it's nearly impossible to keep your hands warm. That also happens to be very typical weather for Portland Oregon and the winter weather I regularly spend seven hours riding in. Out of necessity, I've worked out strategies over the years.

Instead of a hook and loop closure, Castelli uses a zippered closure. The Espresso GT also uses a longer cut at the wrist, a squared-off fingertip shape, and lots of silicone grip material on the palm. The overall effect is a less bulky feeling that is faster to get on and off and has a better connection with your bars than the Gore glove.

Cycling Gloves Guide

The answer depends on the timeframe we are talking about. A good pair of gloves with a waterproof membrane, or even a DWR coating, will keep your hands dry for a while. Ride long enough though and they all saturate. The only option that is actually waterproof is a shell. Sportful makes a shell I included here but there are some others out there. They are truly waterproof but they also require another glove for warmth and that second glove will eventually get wet also. When you leave the house on a bitterly cold day, you might make it through a ride with only a single pair of gloves. If you leave the house and it's raining you will need a change of gloves if you ride longer than about three hours. How many winter gloves do you need? At a certain point it becomes too cold to effectively warm up. You can't generate enough body heat either because you are riding slower, because your body has trouble keeping extremities warm, or just because it's too cold. When that happens, it's time to turn to a heated glove; the question is which one? The other useful thing to remember is that you should bring more than one pair of gloves. In some ways, this is the counter to my first piece of advice. Not everyone is as cold as me and having another option solves that challenge. It's not always about options though, changing gloves mid-ride is the only way to manage a long winter ride if it's raining. I promise you will not mind the extra bulk of a second set of gloves when you change into them. Is there such a thing as waterproof gloves? The more I investigated this problem, the more I heard that the best option would be a shell without any ability to absorb water. The only problem was that there wasn't a good option available, then the Sportful Lobster glove hit the market. These gloves are the solution you need if you want to ride long distances in cold rain.

In milder weather it's not actually necessary to have completely waterproof gloves. Your skin is waterproof after all, so as long as you have gloves that keep your hands warm, they don't necessarily need to keep you dry. Options such as a wet weather neoprene glove can work well in cool not cold conditions. They're often basic in style, with no padding or additional features, such as cuff adjustment. I didn't phrase the question asking "do you need more than one pair of gloves for winter riding?" That's because you absolutely do, the question is only how many do you need? You could think about it from the point of view of changing conditions. The longer you ride in the winter the more gloves you are going to add to your collection. Throughout the winter the temperature changes a lot and there are gloves available for very small differences. From this point of view, most people will want something from the early season section plus something from the all-around section. Rain and deep winter gloves are more specialised, so you’ll have to decide if you are willing to ride in that kind of weather. We couldn't help but highly rate these brilliant winter cycling gloves from Endura. They aren't quite as finessed as the higher end brands, but with both impressive wind and water proof characteristics, they could easily fit in to both categories.Neoprene gloves work by holding water close to your skin and allowing it to work as insulation. The problem is that they don't work when the outside air is near freezing. The outside air overcomes your body's ability to warm the water and you have both wet and cold hands. You have to keep the outside air away from the neoprene and if you put them inside of a shell glove it solves everything. The shell will leak but the water that comes through will become a part of your insulation. You can remain warm and comfortable for hours with a pair of neoprene gloves inside a shell. What are the warmest winter cycling gloves? We really rated these Specialized Prime Series Thermal gloves for a more of a mild winter option, ideal for the late autumn and early spring riding in changeable conditions.