I have taken a sabbatical from my life-long search for
the perfect pinecone and have recently been focused on trying to find the perfect
pair of cold weather gloves. I haven’t
found them yet and while I haven’t given up I thought I would share the
expanding wisdom that is now taking up space in my oft helmet covered noggin.
The problem with sports equipment is that the bar
continues to rise and now and again you come across a piece of gear that
creates a new benchmark. The Gabba
jersey from Castelli and the Nano-Air jackets from Patagonia are examples of
game-changing breakthroughs. Their
performance results in “Yeah, Go buy THIS!’ comments from everyone who owns
one.
Finding gloves that provide breathability, water
protection, warmth and dexterity across a range of conditions is proving
impossible. I realize it is a tough
order to fill but I am hopeful. I have
accumulated a shoebox full of gloves that do a good job on one or more of those
attributes. I have yet to find a pair
that gets the nod as an absolute “must have.”
With my highly predictable and perhaps pointless preamble
out of the way; these Craft gloves do a fine job. They keep you warm and have reasonable
breathability when temperatures are not too far above or below freezing. The split finger design is nice and the
separate slots for each of your fingers (which seems to contradict the external
grouping) is nice. They are warm and as
long as they remain dry they go one and off easily.
These are the gloves I should have taken when my son and
I went Nordic skiing at -12F. My lapse
in judgment has resulted in my left index finger wanting to join the forces of
cold every chance it gets. When my
extremities are even contemplating getting cold my finger behaves as if to say,
“Let it start with me.” Hence I have at least a near term plan to “over-glove.”
It took a few rides for me to get used to shifting my
road bike with the split finger design.
What I didn’t have to get used to was the nice warm hands I had while
riding. I haven’t used these in the rain
so I can’t comment on their water repellency. There are bits of reflective trim so these
have been welcomed on some pre-dawn commutes.
They fit true to size and I could slip in a thin liner
glove if I needed to. They pass my acid
test of drying quickly enough. Like most
winter gloves they can get too hot and with breathability that is neither
exceptionally good or bad they get wet.
Then they are harder to get on and off and their insulation properties
are compromised as well.
These are solid performers in the right conditions. Four of Five Evos.
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