Castelli Reflex Shoecover

Castelli has been introducing its shiny grey high-visibility material to a number of garments. Its Reflex Overshoes not only keep your feet as dry as can be with a big hole in the bottom for your shoe cleats, but help you be seen on murky days and at night.

Pulling the Reflexes over my shoes – they're designed for road shoes – it's clear the company's fame for small-fitting sizes also extends to its overshoe range. I have quite small feet at 42/43s, depending on the shoe I'm wearing, and the overshoes in a large (recommended for 43-44) involved a bit of elbow grease to pull on. Once on, though, the fit was snug and taut around my shoes. There's probably some kind of aero benefit there, along with them just looking good.

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The outer material, along with being fantastically visible when lit up by car lights, is plenty windproof and waterproof. It's always tricky to judge how waterproof a pair of overshoes is, given that they all share the not-very-waterproof feature of having a massive cleat hole in the bottom. Nonetheless, in downpours my feet never were unhappy. The Reflexes aren't as warm as a thick pair of neoprene overshoes, but the combination of resistant outer material with some fleecy insulated internal material did better than I expected.

The seams are all sealed pretty well to add to the Reflexes' resistance to the elements, and the zippers are slightly offset outwards of the customary "straight up the back" location for a zipper. I thought this worked well, and helped when it came to doing them up as you don't have to bunch all the material toward the zip as much.

The Cordura sole is noticeably tougher than the rest of the material on the overshoe, but it's still not that tough, and my test pair of Reflexes are already starting to show signs of wear.

> Check out our guide to essential wet weather gear and clothing here

For me, overshoes are pretty much mandatory garments during cold winter commutes and training rides. Particularly on commutes, my feet spend a fair amount of time on the ground at lights, and walking into the office. As such, I wear out overshoes material pretty quickly, and I don't think I've ever managed to make a set last more than a year. To all intents and purposes, they are a consumable item.

Castelli says the Reflexes are designed for winter training rides and chaingangs – and "are not designed for walking in" – but even so I'm struggling with the current discounted price of £50.25, let alone the £75 RRP. They're great overshoes in terms of fit, function and visibility, but £75 is decent jersey money.

Verdict

High visibility overshoes that protect against the elements, but not robust enough to justify the price