Cyclingnews Awards: Winter Cycling Gloves

When I first started working on the best winter cycling gloves buyers guide I was training for the Rapha Festive 500 in one shot. The idea was to head out from the Seattle store and ride through the only temperate rainforest on the American continent. In short, I was asking for a lot from my gloves and I was looking for the best options to keep my hands in the cold and wet. 

Most rides, when I was testing gloves, involved leaving the house just after dawn in the rain. The temperatures hovered a bit above freezing and it would rain consistently for the next seven hours or so that I would be riding. I would subject gloves to this torture test over and over and eventually I put together a list of six things I learned while testing winter cycling gloves. 

Thankfully, those kinds of winter rides are behind me for the most part. I've been there enough and learned what I needed to know. These days I try to stick to nicer days and test gloves in other situations so I can round out my recommendations. 

For the 2023 Cyclingnews awards, I've taken a look at both situations. If you are looking for new winter cycling gloves when the days get shorter keep reading to see what I consider the best value winter cycling gloves, the best overall winter cycling gloves, and one honourable mention.

Best overall

I tend to do longer rides in colder weather and I'm constantly cold. That combination of traits has led me to spend a lot of time looking for warmer and more extreme gloves. Most people aren't looking for that though. Instead, most people need a much lighter glove that will do a lot and still be packable. That's where the Castelli Perfetto RoS gloves do the best work. 

Gore fabrics see heavy use in Castelli designs. For the Perfetto RoS gloves Castelli uses Gore-Tex Infinium as the outer layer. Infinium isn't waterproof but it's close. The real world result is that you probably can't tell the difference between a fully waterproof glove and an Infinium glove as no glove is actually waterproof. Instead, the Perfetto RoS gloves are completely windproof and there's a warm fleece lining. The result is a glove that easy to stash in a jersey pocket but provides outsized warmth. You can use these across a wide range of temperatures. 

The only part of the Castelli gloves I don't love is that fit of the finger. While many will be happy to find a bit more length in the fingertips, my fingers don't quite make it to the ends. It's not terrible but it doesn't feel as form fitting and it diminishes the touchscreen usability a bit. 

Best budget

Winter gloves tend to be a get what you pay for kind of thing. If I recommend less expensive gloves they are less warm and less protective. The Giro Xnetic H20 Glove doesn't follow the same pattern though. These are the gloves that might get you through the whole winter but are also a great option when you need to layer and they do it all at a bargain price. 

Put the Giro Xnetic H20 gloves on your hands and they feel like a cozy knit glove. They are form fitting and comfortable but there's nothing all that special about them from the outside. There is some printed silicone on the hand but otherwise nothing will catch your eye. That leaves your connection to the bars feeling the way you want it to. However, the real magic is what you can't see. 

The Giro Xnetic H20 gloves use a three-layer design. In between the knit synthetic inner and outer is a membrane. The membrane makes these gloves waterproof, as with all gloves you want to expect resistance but it's a help, and windproof. If you end up riding in colder weather than what these can handle, they make a great candidate for laying even with the membrane. 

Honourable mention

When I was doing the bulk of my testing with winter gloves I spent a lot of time talking to different companies asking about rain performance. Each time a new pair of gloves would come they would claim to be waterproof and they'd fail in the rain. More than one company suggested I try some kind of shell only glove but nothing was available. Then Sportful came out with the simply named Sportful Lobster Gloves. 

There's not actually much to the Sportful Lobster gloves. You get a lightweight shell with a big cuff and a drawstring. Once again these gloves claim to be totally waterproof and they aren't. The fabric itself is waterproof, but Sportful didn't tape every seam and they will leak. Despite that, I love these because of how well they can layer. 

The Sportful Lobster gloves let you pick and choose what goes under them. For those days when I expect to be in the rain and cold for seven hours I add a pair of neoprene gloves underneath. Neoprene gloves alone can handle wet but not cold. Pair them the Sportful Lobster gloves and the combo performs better than any other glove I've tried. You can also pair them with the Giro budget option I picked if it gets too cold for just the Giro gloves. 

The only downside to these Sportful gloves is they aren't a complete solution alone. You have to pair them with something and that ups the price.