However, the idea stuck with me. I couldn’t help thinking that I’d been a little too quick to judge and actually they would be pretty useful. In particular, if you need to tap your iPhone or mobile phone screen when it is in a bike mount. As I often do when I’m following a new route somewhere.

I looked around at a couple of different companies that sell these types of gloves and came across the eGlove eXtreme (it’s all about capital letters in strange places). I was impressed by the quality and the price seemed about right so I’ve added them to our London Cyclist eShop.

With the cold weather we are mid way through at the moment I thought it would be a good time to announce their addition.

If you are looking for a pair then have a look at the size chart at the bottom of this page because they are designed to have a very snug fit (time to ask around for a tape measure or ruler!) I’ll end this post with this random fact: I have a 19cm hand.

Want to know one of the most searched for items this time of the year? Winter cycling gloves. If you manage to wake up from your huge Turkey Christmas dinner induced coma and look out the window you’ll understand why. On my hunt for winter cycling glove nirvana, that magical moment when your hands are warm but not sweaty, I’ve tested a number of gloves. I wanted to share my results with you here. Your hands will thank me for it..

Before I begin to discuss the subject of gloves, may I just say that in reviewing anything for London Cyclist, it’s either something I already own, something I’ve just bought to try out or something that I’ve asked a manufacturer or supplier to give me to test.  I don’t review unsolicited stuff  and I don’t have any affiliation to any company.  If I like it I say so, if not, I say so too, so that my review remains independent.

I’ve almost lost count of the number of gloves I own.  It seems that I need a pair for every situation, sport or circumstance.   My priority is to have toasty warm hands at almost all cost, in something windproof.  I ride downhill in the mornings so I go quite fast and need that windproof factor.

The best pair of lightweight cycling gloves

In the summer I bought the best pair of lightweight cycling gloves ever, by Cinelli. They were quite pricy, about £30 I think, which is a lot for a pair of fingerless gloves but they are a dream to ride with.  I can reach the levers without feeling constricted by the glove, they are long enough to pull down over my wrist and they look great.  When you find something this good, you try to replicate the feeling in everything else and unless you’re very lucky, it doesn’t happen very often.

The winter arrives

When the weather started to turn a little colder and there was a chill in the morning air, I started wearing a pair of nylon running gloves,  fine in the crisp morning air and I didn’t really need them on the way home.   Colder still, I started to wear a pair of Gore Lady Countdown gloves that I bought in the sale last year.  They were fine for a short ride in the cold but on a long fast ride let me down a bit.   They are waterproof and windproof but still not -4 proof.  The soft-shell fabric is good but just not warm enough.

I have some fantastic skiing gloves by Spyder but they’re really only useful for spring skiing and I still haven’t found anything that matches their performance for skiing in the depths of winter.  I was using them to cycle in but at the moment, they’re not warm enough because my fingers are stretched to the ends inside.   That’s the thing with any old glove.  They just don’t have the reach that’s needed to ride with thumbs and index finger round the bars, and the other fingers on the brakes, which is how I ride.  Does anyone else do this?  It’s a habit I picked up from an MTB skills session and it gives me a little bit more control, especially in the weather.  Anyway, I digress.

Beating the extreme temperatures

I think I’m near Nirvana but it has been a long, and I’m sad to say, fairly expensive haul.   There’s nothing worse having fingers or toes that one can’t actually feel.  It’s that fiddling about when I get to the railway station to lock up the bike that does it, or at the other endof the day, unlocking and putting lights on.  If my hands get cold in those few minutes, in these sub-zero temperatures, then they just don’t get warm again. So, on to the next.

Last week I ordered a pair of Himalayan down-filled mittens from The North Face (Google Shopping Link).  They were expensive, are ridiculously big but very, very warm.  I rode home last Thursday in a snow storm and a ferocious headwind and my fingers were fine.  They have Gore windstopper fabric on the outside with leather palms for grip.  I have fleece liners from some old skiing gloves which fit inside perfectly.  The mitts are roomy enough for that all-important pocket of air.  When I need to take them off, the liners have grippy stuff on the palms (I’m sure there’s a technical name for that) so that I can do what I need to do, stay relatively warm and the put the mitts back on again when I’m done.

I have to say that the Himalayan mitts are extremely large, but then we’re dealing with extreme conditions here and I want to keep on riding.  I can just about change gear in them and use my normal grip but they wouldn’t work (I don’t think) for a long ride on drops.

So it seems that the mittens + liner is working for me in these temperatures and when the weather starts to warm up a bit, I’ll be back to the Spyder gloves, then the Gore gloves and then just the fleece liner or the nylon running gloves.

For the Wilier, when I need to ride with my fingers on the levers, I’ll have to stick with the Gore Countdown gloves.  That’s not so much of a problem  at the moment because I’m not taking that bike out.  8kgs of bike and snow and ice is not a good combination, for me anyway.  I have heard good things about the Gore lobster gloves, but I haven’t tried them myself.

A quick tip:  One can get similar gloves to my fleece liners, with grips on the palms, from any good saddlery.  They keep the chill off in the spring and autumn but give some grip on the bars, and they fit under bigger gloves.  They are no more than £5.  Sealskinz, which I know a lot of you like, do a windproof hunting glove with grippy, nobbly bits on the palm for around £30.  Hunting gloves have the closest affinity with cycling gloves because they are made with extra reach between the index finger and thumb, where we need it most.  And for all of the iPhone owners out there they have a flip-over index finger, for trigger (screen) access.

So there it is.  A round-up of winter gloves chez moi.  Next week: Winter legwear.

Post by Nicole. Make sure you checkout her introduction to London Cyclist.

See also:

• Winter cycling gloves (Andreas’ take)
• Waterproof cycling jackets
• Puncture proof tyres

I never thought I would be one of those people who can never seem to keep warm. My body’s heating system is the equivalent of trying to heat a room by putting a block of ice in there. I don’t know if you’ve tried doing that but trust me it doesn’t work. 

At the height of my loosing battle against the cold was my gloves. The fingerless gloves were certainly not going to cut it and my normal gloves whilst warm didn’t have enough grip for cycling.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying out the DeFeet Dura glove. They have received positive reviews on Wiggle and are at a pretty good price point so I wanted to check them out.

When they arrived I went out on my first date with them. I took them to Hampstead Health Park for some cycling. Please don’t assume this is what I do on all my dates. Just because I run a cycling blog a lot of people assume stuff like this!

Anyway, back to my on a date analogy. The first part of the route to Hampstead Heath park is a steep climb. Here they kept my hands warm but not sweaty. So far so good. However, as the tough cycling ended and it was more of a casual cycle through the park my fingers started to feel slightly cold. At the time it was 4C degrees (40F).

What I did notice about the DeFeet Dura gloves is how comfortable they felt. At the end of the cycle I didn’t want to take them off. The medium size fitted really comfortably on my what I guess are average hands. (Seen as no one has ever said to me “wow, you have giant hands” I’m safely assuming they are pretty average)

The DeFeet Dura gloves also have really good grip. Never at any point did I feel like my hands were going to slip off. At the same time they offered good control of the bike and I could feel what I was doing. I do however prefer to buy slightly padded gloves to absorb some of the shock of all the road bumps. After a couple of longer cycles (3-4 hours) my wrists were feeling a bit strained.

At the moment if it is particularly cold I use the DeFeet gloves as an under layer and place my fingerless gloves on top. This seems to keep my hands at the perfect temperature. One really important point to mention is that not at any point have my hands felt sweaty due to the gloves.

Review summary

The DeFeet Dura glove is by far the most comfortable pair of gloves I have ever worn. Combine this with the excellent grip and the good temperature they keep my hands at most the time then you have a really good pair of gloves. At around £13.99 RRP (Wiggle ~£12.50) I think that is excellent value.

On the downside as the temperature drops below 4-5C degrees you will need an extra layer on top of them. Though hopefully we won’t be seeing any more weather like that for a while.

The DeFeet come in black, red, white and blue.

Click here to check them out on Wiggle Online Bike Shop

Read on..

• Winter cycling gloves buying guide
• Waterproof cycling jacket buying guide
• Free Bicycle Maintenance eBook

With this challenge in mind I though this post would be a good place to list everyone’s recommendations, some of my winter cycling glove recommendations and see also what you guys here on London Cyclist Blog had to say on the matter.

Are winter cycling gloves worth it?

As with any specialist cycling equipment the question often arises as to whether it is worth it. I’m often asked: Am I not just okay with my normal gloves? You can replace the words normal gloves with: normal shorts, normal trainers, normal jacket etc.

Usually this is absolutely fine in two situations. A) You only cycle a small distance and B) You are really not interested in any of the performance and comfort benefits.

Good winter cycling gloves should provide grip so your hands don’t end up slipping off the handlebars. They should not be too bulky so you still have a good feel of the cycle. Also they should provide a good combination between being breathable and waterproof. Finally they should look good (or at least not ugly!).

Your winter cycling glove recommendations

As always my Twitterers came to my rescue with these useful recommendations:

• cg__ I’ve seen mixed reviews but personally I swear by my Seal Skinz Road cycling gloves #wintercycling
• garylee007 I have a pair of assos thin inners under a pair of north face windstoppers. About £45 for both sets combined. The NF ones are excellent in themselves down to about +2 degrees. Any decent outdoor shop sells them.
• suspectpackage had endura strikes for 2 years now, nice but not quite warm enough for the last couple of days though. Would recommend
• grant_clark (Web) I’d be interested to hear recommendations. Not Sealskinz, wore them over the weekend and almost got frostbite.
• Von_Cheam Tried Endura Strikes & Seal Skins this year. Seal Skins MUCH better! The best gloves I’ve ^ever^ seen, though, are nautical gloves – they’re insanely pricey, however! Motorcycle gloves are better at retaining warmth & offer better protection than cycle gloves – but they can be pretty bulky. I use winter cycle gloves for autumn & early spring (& for winter rides less than 1 or 2 miles) & motorcycle gloves in winter. Oh – and electrically-heated gloves are a useless, overpriced gimmick unless you get super-expensive skiers’ ones!
• gavspicer All about the Sealskinz in the winter
• dangingery (Web) Sealskinz by a mile!

My recommendations

dhb Amberley Glove 2011

At the budget end of the scale the DHB Amberley Winter cycling glove 2011 is a good choice. It offers excellent value for money and offers good warmth and waterproofing. I can highly recommend the Amberley and it can be bought from Wiggle for £25. That’s the sort of price I like!

Sealskinz All Weather cycling glove

As you can see from the comments on Twitter opinions on the Sealskinz cycling gloves are always split though most tend to lean towards the positive. In my own personal experience with the Sealskinz I found them comfortable and providing the exact correct amount of warmth. That was without needing an extra under-layer of gloves. What I did find however is that the medium size was a little small and the big size a little on the big side. I chose the medium all weather winter cycling glove and regretted it as my thumb doesn’t fit very well. So I recommend leaning towards the larger size. The Sealskinz are priced roughly at the same point as the DHB Amberley winter cycling gloves at £25 – £30.

Altura Night Vision Waterproof Winter Cycling Gloves

At £35.99 the Altura winter cycling gloves air on the more expensive side but do provide great warmth, comfort and waterproofing. They come with an inner liner glove that is detachable from the outer layer. This is an very useful as your body temperature rises. Sticking to the Altura trademark design, these gloves are also good for high visibility. The downside is the bulkiness.

Tips

This is another part of cycling where layers are really useful. If you are cold try putting an extra pair of thin inner gloves underneath. I recommend the deFeet cycling gloves which I’ve reviewed here. Then, as you warm up you can pull them off.

A tip I once had recommended to me and that works well if you are getting wet hands is to buy some latex or non-latex gloves from the chemist and put them on underneath your cycling gloves. This prevents any water that tries to sneak in.