Cold-weather cycling gloves

Gloves. In order of warmth.

It's officially not summer. I was wishing I had some light gloves for this morning commute to keep the chill off.

With the exception of the rare CX race, I don't wear "proper" cycling gloves. Especially for commuting. They're just another thing to lose that don't offer me much benefit. I have plenty of high-benefiting stuff to lose (e.g. keys, phone, headphones, knife, money, wallet).

So I have a lot of cold-weather gloves. For two reasons: I loose them temporarily a lot. And they get wet, so it's nice to have a back up. Actually three reasons: And one pair of gloves does not work in this climate, where a given week in the winter can offer super dry cold, lame wet slushy rainy gunk, freezing rain/snow, and warmish cold in the 40's. There are gloves that get close, but the super cold (under zero in these parts) and death zone (wet and near freezing) really test the boundaries of gloves. I offered my functional design services for gloves last year. I'm not seeing any royalty checks yet.

Sorry. There's four reasons: since most of the gloves I like are not cycling-specific, they tend to fail prematurely in the palm. So when I find one I like, I watch for them to go on sale and I buy them. Summer is a great time to buy gloves.

So without further ado. Here's some notes on the different gloves. In no particular order.

Smartwool cheapies. Sold as "liner" gloves. About $12 on sale.
Good: light, super porous. Easy to stuff into a pocket. Wish I had these this morning when it was about 46F on the way to work.
Bad: The palms will blow out after about 20 commutes.

Modified REI gloves. Modification story here.
Good: probably my most used glove the last couple years. Since the fingers part pops off, it has a great temp range, and it allows me to easily fuss with phone, get keys, etc. The thick fleece has held up in the palm over 2 years. Impressive.
Bad: requires modification. The wind-blocker modification is essential for sub-freezing. The pair on the left are awaiting modification. I'll wrap the wind/rain shield all the way around the finger part this year. Not just on the outside.

PI Lobsters.
Good: not much.
Bad: expensive, not warm under freezing, not warm when wet. Not water proof at all.

OR shells.
Good: great in theory. If they were water proof, I'd love these to death. They're not, but they're great with some liner mittens for snowy rides where snow doesn't wet out and cold/windy rides. I wish someone would make a non-gauntlet-style of these in gortex.
Bad: not water proof. Not made anymore.

Dakine Super Fancies.
These were on close out at the end of the season last year. So I'm gambling on these this for super cold weather.
Good: even if the shells suck, the liners are the bomb. I've been looking for simple poly/fleece liner mittens since REI discontinued theirs about 4 years ago. I'll use these a lot this year. I hope the liners hold up better than the REI ones did, cause a super light-weight, simple fleece mitten is a great thing.
Bad: The one time I tried these at the end of the season my hands sweated to death from all the layers of poly. I think you can get away with a layer or two of plastic, but to breath you gotta have gortex or wool somewhere in there.

OR Flurry Gloves
Another close-out bet. I like these. They're wool with poly/fleece lining.
Good: Warmer than they look and they hold up to wet surprisingly well. Good enough for a wettish 30 minute ride. Wool exterior appears to be holding up well in the palm area.
Bad: Nothing yet.

Ibex liners (L) and Ibex gloves (R)
I love Ibex stuff but these liners are always a huge disappointment in how fast the palms blow up. It's a shame they don't do something to reinforce them to make them useful as stand alone cool-weather gloves, cause they're wonderful to wear. I try to save these only for liner duty, but I'm not great at that.
The red ones are just good solid wool gloves. Same functionally as the Smartwools at the top, but these guys have the glue-y little bits on the palm, so they last much longer. My memory is that they cost about $20 on sale? Good buy those.

Cheap rag wool fingerless convertible gloves.
Good: super cheap. Worth having around just in case. Pretty sure I got these when I needed gloves on a shit ride home from Kettle Falls.
Bad: run that wicked piece velcro over your cold dripping nose for a brutal reminder of why velcro should never go there.