I’m intending to buy some gloves to use for commuting on cold days. I’m looking for something wind-proof, fairly light, and hopefully a bit water resistant.
Here are three sets of gloves that I’ve been looking at:
- Outdoor Research, commuter windstopper gloves
- Arc’teryx, Venta gloves
- Rab, Vapour-Rise gloves
I don’t really know if any of those are good options. But they seem roughly what I’m looking for.
I’m wondering what gloves other people wear, and if you have any recommendations.
[edit] Although the primary purpose of the gloves is for commuting; I’d also like them to be my general “go to” gloves for whenever they are needed when visiting cold places.
Deerskin leather gloves, wax them for water resistance and under layer with your summer gloves.
You can get them in any hardware store. The are multi purpose and proven by workers in all conditions over generations
You don’t say your weather conditions but for legit cold I like ski gloves and liners like the other poster said. Otherwise I have some Scott leather gloves that i wear for xc skiing that work well down to the low 40s. I also have some down mittens, OR maybe, that are great and I can use brifters but they tend to be too warm unless it’s really cold
Haven’t had too much gloves, got a pair of Santini Fjord gloves but turned out to be a bit of an overkill and they leave my hands with a smell worse than my stinky feet (!). Also got a pair of Spiuk Top Ten which do the job but the velcro is quite finicky imho and there is a kind of poliester-y thin layer on top of tome parts of the palm that has started to peel off in a nasty way, but however doesn’t affect in a single bit their functionality.
That’s good info on the over-warm gloves. I should be careful of that. At the moment, I’m visiting cold places - so there is a temptation to buy myself some nice warm gloves. But for my main purposes at home, it doesn’t get as cold… so really warm gloves would be a mistake I think.
It’s really hard to tell how warm or wind-resistant a glove might be without touching it in person. Shop local if you can and try them on. That said, here’s my take on general styles:
If the temps are near or below freezing, I really like ski gloves with a long gauntlet wrist that goes over the cuff of my jacket. That keeps cold air from blowing up my sleeves. See the North Face Montana glove for an example, though there are countless similar gloves out there.
For cool temps I wear nylon shell gloves over fleece gloves. Just like layering clothing, I can wear one, the other, or both depending on the weather. It’s hard to find shell gloves, though.
I have never found a softshell glove that I liked. The ones I have owned either don’t block enough wind, or tear and fall apart earlier than I would like.
Yeah, I like the layers idea. And I’m seeing that trying stuff on is definitely important. I’ve been to a couple of stores recently, and the fit of different gloves is quite different even with similar styles and sizes.
I’m away from home at the moment; and its a bit colder here than where I live - so although it would be nice to have new gloves right away I’m thinking maybe I should wait until I’m hope to choose something in the climate that I actually live in!
What kind of weather are you expecting to deal with? Temperature-wise is generally most important to know to give advice.
I personally bought a pair of fairly thick gloves from AliExpress most recently, and they serve me well in temperatures as cold as -10 C.
Right.
It rarely gets below 0°C where I live, and mostly I’m not going to be wearing gloves at all. But when I do wear them, I guess it will be somewhere around -2 to 6 °C. I don’t think I need gloves that are very warm. It’s mostly have wind-chill and a bit of warmth for general use.
(Currently I’m away from home, in a place where it is regularly -5 to -10 °C; so I’m thinking it might be good to have a not-too-warm set of gloves but with enough space for a woolen liner or something.)
In that context, look for insulated work gloves that are rubber coated on the outside.
I had to run errands in the pouring rain recently, and those performed really well!
