Rapha Winter Gloves

Rapha's Winter Gloves are well-made and very comfortable in cold conditions although – ouch! – that price leaves something hard and jagged in the throat.

As you might expect, Rapha use some high-quality materials here. The palm, thumb and first two fingers are reinforced with Pittards goatskin leather, for example, which is incredibly soft stuff. With high-density foam padding underneath, it makes for a very comfortable grip on the handlebars and hoods, and it's hard wearing enough to put up with the inevitable scrapes.

The fleecy polyester inner is super-soft too, and it's impossible to accidentally drag it out when you take the gloves off. That's a pet hate of mine. You don't want to be messing around getting your gloves to behave after taking them off to fix a puncture.

The main outer fabric – the orange material – is a nylon/polyurethane mix that blocks the wind and also helps keep the rain out. These gloves aren't waterproof but they do have a DWR (durable water repellent) coating that helps keep your hands dry in a shower. If you're likely to be out in prolonged rain, you'll need something more watertight but they're surprisingly water resistant; road spray never gets inside.

The cuff on the palm-side is made from stretchy neoprene so it's stretchy. That means you can get your hands in and out without much trouble. Previously, Rapha used Velcro to draw the cuffs in, but the neoprene is a much tidier way of doing it. I didn't get the closest fit ever around the wrist but, once I had the sleeves of my jersey tucked in there, it was pretty good.

The soft nose-wipe on the back of each thumb works well, although you first have to get your head around cleaning your nose on 85 quid gloves. You also get a little bit of reflective trim that's hardly noticeable in daylight.

These are low bulk for winter gloves, so you can feel the levers really easily when you want to brake or change gear. You don't get loads of deep insulation which made me wonder whether they would be up to the job when the temperature dropped. I've been wearing them from around 10°C down to about 5°C with nothing underneath them, although I tend to feel the cold more than most so maybe you'll be fine a few degrees lower than that. I've been using them on top of some thin liner gloves at temperatures below 5°C. Rapha actually offer a merino liner at £40, and overmitts at £90, but if you add up all those prices your outlay gets scarily large.

Unlike a lot of gloves that you can just sling in the washing machine and tumble dryer, you need to hand wash and hang dry these. Plus, once dried, Rapha advise you to apply a leather glove balm to the palms to keep them supple. You know what leather can be like when it comes out of water: it goes hard and can crack if you're not careful, so these are fairly high maintenance compared to fully synthetic gloves.

As long as you're cool with that, though, and you can handle the price, these are some very good gloves. If the orange version doesn't do it for you, they're also available in chartreuse (yellow) and black.

Verdict

Comfortable, well-made gloves that provide a good level of warmth considering their lack of bulk, but they'll cost you