Polaris Torrent gloves

The Polaris Torrent gloves are claimed to be fully waterproof. They certainly protect your hands from the rain, and keep them warm in cold conditions. However – just as with any cycling gloves – their performance is stretched when the weather is very wet and very cold.

At first glance, the Torrent gloves look good: all black, with a reflective silver stripe and a couple of logos on the back of the palm. And on first wearing they are instantly comfortable. I have average-sized hands (23cm round the widest part of the palm, just below the knuckles) and the size Large gloves fit snugly, without being too tight. The fingers of the glove are long enough, so don't press against the ends of my own fingers when my hands grip the bars, a problem I encounter with some other brands of glove.

There's plenty of padding in the fabric, plus silicone grippers across the palm and fingers to keep you firmly in contact with the handlebars.

These gloves really excel on long rides in cold conditions where the air is damp or there's a bit of drizzle, or maybe some rain that'll last an hour or so, but not all day. I've done a few test rides in conditions like that over the winter and, inside the Torrents, my hands have stayed warm, dry and comfortable throughout.

But these gloves claim to be fully waterproof, using a membrane which keeps the rain out while letting sweat escape, which is another matter altogether. So, to test the waterproofing claims, the gloves were subjected to laboratory investigations in my usual scientific manner.

Test one: Stick my hands (wearing the gloves) under the bathroom shower for 10 minutes, to simulate cycling in the rain, regularly pumping the hands as if using the brakes, to move the seams and expose any weakness. Throughout this test, my hands stayed perfectly dry.

Test two: Fully immerse hands inside the gloves into a bowl of water for 10 minutes, pumping as before to mimic braking action. After 10 minutes, my hands were still dry.

The lab investigations give a useful picture, but nothing beats real world conditions. And, how lucky for me that on some of those winter rides the weather was not so kind. On one ride in early February, it poured with rain pretty much all day, and the temperature sat between around 3 and 5 degrees, meaning the gloves got another decent test. Wearing a fully waterproof jacket, making sure the sleeves were velcro'd tight over the gloves, my hands stayed dry and warm in the first hour or so. After three hours of rain, my hands got slightly damp on the inside (probably from sweat – it was warm inside that jacket) and then started to get cold as the gloves were also soaking wet on the outside and the wind-chill factor came into effect.

In fairness, this is not a fault of these Polaris Torrent gloves. A major problem with any cycling glove is that great big hole where your hand goes in; unless the join between jacket and glove is watertight, some water will find its way in. And even if you're sealed on the outside, perspiration will still track down your arms and into the gloves.

To test this theory, I also used the gloves during a shorter ride in the rain without the waterproof jacket, and my hands got wet on the inside, almost certainly from water tracking down the arms of my jersey, which was sopping wet when I got home.

Just for completeness, with the gloves washed and dried back at base, I repeated the lab tests in the shower and bowl of water. My hands remained dry.

Of course you could go for something totally impermeable to water, such as industrial rubber work gloves or Marigolds, but unless you're really pottering along you will perspire and the moisture still tracks down your arms and collects in the gloves. Or you could go the other way and get neoprene gloves, which are designed to let the water in while keeping your hands warm using the wetsuit principle. On both those options, your hands tend to get sweaty (and smelly) - I know, I've tried them - whereas the Polaris Torrent gloves have the membranes that keep the water out but allow perspiration to escape.

On the basis of those tests, when it comes to being waterproof, these Polaris Torrent gloves are as good as any cycling glove of similar material is likely to be, given the nature of cycling clothing and the realities of cycling in the rain.

Beyond the topic of waterproofing, one niggle I have with these gloves is the size of the cuffs. With the Velcro tab they fit well around the wrist, but personally I could do with then being just a centimetre longer to properly cover that gap of bare skin that sometimes appears between glove and jacket.

The recommended retail price for the Polaris Torrent gloves is £34.99, but you can find them under 30 quid at the usual on-line stores. This is not a steal, but a fair price when compared against similar gloves from other manufacturers such as Endura (Luminite gloves rrp £32.99) or Sealskins (Dragon Eye at £32, Ultra Grip Gauntlets at £40).

Verdict

Well-made gloves to protect your hands from wet or cold conditions, but stretched in heavy rain & cold