Just looking for some advice/feedback on good winter gloves, its starting to get a bit chilly down here in Canberra ;-). Just wondering what gloves you guys recommend for cooler conditions.
Cheers
Warm ones!
its a good question,, the best gloves i have arent even bike gloves.. i got them at ALDI when they had ski clothing on special. had plenty of tough bike gloves over the years, but none have been all that good in the cold. i bought some 3 fingered gloves last year in NZ. supposed to work well because no finger is in a pocket by itself (shared heat) i will get to test them this winter
Another option you may wish to consider is to use a pair of thermal gloves under your regular leather gloves, something like "sealskinz" that kayakers use......look them up, they're cheap, thin and very effective.
I know it sounds like a lot of bother to wear two pairs of gloves but frozen fingers which don't work properly aint no fun.
In fact, if I lived in Canberra I'd be considering the Sealskinz gloves, socks, balaklava, shirt and pants under my clothes.
Just looking at their website, I see they also do a motorcycle glove (although I have no idea how effective these may be): http://www.sealskinz.com/UK/gloves
i use these http://www.bearwallowgloves.com/proddetail.php?prod=MC-GT-LD here in melb over winter, some mornings are 2 degress and these are great for my 20k comute. Being only 40gram Thinsulate they still work well, but i think they also do a thicker amount of Thinsulate if requested. Packaging and postage were fantastic, even got a personal written thank you from them!!!
T1
Heated grips are ultimately the highest utility value, though of course heated gloves are good too. I recently returned home to Australia after 15 years in Canada. I suffered through some seriously bone chilling stuff before biting the bullet and installing heated grips (Heat Demonz). I have heated gloves which have their own battery in the 'sleeve' portion, and they work great until the battery dies and you're stuck riding home in the late arvo. I am not a fan of gloves hooked by cords to bike or jacket but maybe that is just me.
So why heated grips? What I found is that, while others are right that heated grips can still lead to cold fingertips, it is temperature sensitive. That is, below about 5 degree yep the finger tips still get cold and heated gloves are needed. But in the 5 to 15 range some regular insulated and non-bulky gloves, especially if you slip an inner layer in, can be used in conjunction with the heated grips burning away and I found my hands were fine. Many heated gloves are bulky and can reduce flexibility. Mine are quite good but I don't like them in traffic for instance. I found that the heated grips meant I was better prepared for drops in temp when I had not got out the heated gloves, and also tht some temp ranges the heated gloves were overkill in a way the heated grips were not. Lastly, in some ways I am a weakling, so I must admit there were plenty of 10-15 days where I would not have thought to don heated gloves but the heated grips just added an extra layer of comfort.
In the end, cold hands can be deadly, and all the other gear we can throw on becomes irrelevant as the hands freeze. I'd advise heated grips for the hell of it and heated gloves for when you just know it will be below 5 windchill included. Keep in mind the heavier your hand grips the less some heated grips transmit heat. My heat demonz fry hands if the grip is thin, but my grips have the rubber pads for comfort so the heat demons are never too hot (sometimes I wish they were!). So match heat grips to grips if you go that route.
