Best women’s cycling gloves: Protection and comfort rolled into one

Your climate and type of riding will largely dictate what style of gloves will best fit your requirements. For example, if you do a lot of riding for long distances on the road and you want gloves for warmth because you feel the cold, a set of long-finger gloves with a generous amount of padding will suit your needs best. Looking out for other useful features such as water repellency will also help to keep your hands warm come rain or shine. 

It's also worth thinking about a good-length cuff to keep your wrist warm and sit nicely under a jacket or base layer. Some riders prefer to avoid too much bulk to retain a good handlebar feel and sensations when braking and changing gear. 

A soft, cosy interior that feels great and putting your hands into a plush-feeling winter glove helps you feel ready to face the cold and a nose wipe panel can be really useful too. 

Whether or not you will need gloves for cycling on the road will be down to your own judgement. Gloves are useful when it’s colder to help keep your hands warm and able to change gear (even during the spring and summer) especially when it’s raining.

As well as that, gloves can also be useful when it comes to protecting your hands. Be it from the vibrations of the road due to cobbles which padding can help quash, chaffing from your bars or in the event of an unfortunate date with the floor: if you don’t wear gloves and hit the deck you can sustain abrasion and road rash on your hands which can be really painful. Therefore, a pair of short-finger gloves can act as a second skin, similar to a base layer, to stop you from cutting your skin.

Another form of protection gloves offer is from the sun and wearing a pair of short-finger gloves during the warmer months can help protect your hands from the UVA and UVB rays.

Much like the best women's saddles, the preferred amount of glove padding is entirely personal. For example, if you personally feel that your hands often feel a little numb or sore after riding your bike then a pair of well-padded gloves should help your hands to feel less achy during and after riding. 

However, you might find that you don’t need the padding and just want gloves to protect you from road rash in the event of a crash or from the sun. Therefore, whether or not gloves should be padded is entirely down to the individual and what their needs are.

During the warmer months, short-finger gloves will likely be the best option when it comes to dressing suitably for the weather. This is because they allow breathability through ventilation and most have been designed to wick away sweat to keep you cool.

However, it’s always good to be prepared and have long-finger gloves for the colder days and when riding in the rain. Therefore, long-finger gloves that are not too thick and have been designed for intermediate temperatures are a great piece of equipment to have.

Especially as many long-finger options are still fairly thin meaning you won’t overheat, but benefit from featuring materials that are water repellent so when caught in showers on rainy summer days, your hands will be protected and thus won’t become numb from being wet.

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 or a fully sealed neoprene glove. 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.