Castelli Scalda Elite gloves

The Castelli Scalda Elite Gloves are a bit of a surprise package – low profile and comfortable, yet impressively warm. They also fit really well on my hands.

• Pros: Warmth, comfort, nifty features
• Cons: Not quite deep-winter capable

With my long and slender fingers, I often struggle to find gloves that fit like... a glove. However, Castelli has designed the Scaldas with fingers that are slightly longer than I tend to find in large-sized gloves (these are sold on a scale of XS-XXL), with a slim enough profile that you don't lose valuable dexterity.

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The main fabric is neoprene but is thin enough that it doesn't remove all sense of transmission from bar to hands, while that low profile brings with it good flexibility too so you feel freedom of movement in the fingers.

The seams are also relatively low profile and tidily sewn, so the fingers don't snag on each other, and the back of the hand is all one piece of fabric, backed with a layer of fleece.

This all comes together to create an impressively warm and insulating glove, suitable for the mid-single figures. On fresh mornings of around 3-4°C, the accompanying windchill has proved a little too much for them to deal with, despite the decent windproofing they offer in general. Still, Castelli does say these are designed for 'cool but not necessarily cold conditions', so some shortcomings in deep winter temperatures is to be expected.

When the temperatures have risen into low double figures and the sun is shining, they're warm enough that my hands have started feeling a touch too warm, bordering on sweaty, despite the moderate breathability.

In showers they perform well, too, although they're one step shy of waterproof. In really heavy or prolonged rainfall I did get a bit of water sneaking through.

The additional features are well thought out. The cuff is made of 'Thermoflex' fabric that adheres to the skin but is very stretchy to allow you to get your hand in and out easily, and on each there are silicone nodules to help you get a grip while pulling them on (in place of a protruding tab).

The palms are shaped to suit a curved 'holding-the-bar' profile (including a central seam that follows the natural contours of the hand, which leaves minimal spare fabric to bunch or fold up), while there are two padded sections on the thenar and hypothenar areas of the hand (the base of the thumb and heel of the hand, essentially) to add some extra – effective – comfort and pressure relief.

The entire underside features Castelli-branded silicone grippers bonded to the fabric, along with a silicone logo over the thenar area. This produces genuinely non-slip contact between glove and bar even in rainy conditions. And even if it does begin to come away with age (it hasn't during testing, at all), there's so much here that you should be fine for a good while.

The index and middle fingers, plus the thumb, feature touchscreen pads so you can use your phone without removing the gloves, and they're genuinely useful thanks to the slim profile of the fingers allowing you to press what you want (most of the time) on your phone screen.

Meanwhile, Castelli has one eye on safety with the topsides of the fingers featuring a reflective design bonded to the upper fabric – handy in dark conditions for added rear visibility when you're indicating, and side and front visibility when your fingers are wrapped around the bar.

Finally, there's the obligatory nose wipe zone between the index finger and thumb – always useful – to round of this feature-laden and very competent glove.

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In fact, they're so well designed that they go a long way to justifying their fairly hefty £70 price tag. That said, they're up against a lot of competition: Mavic's Essential Thermo gloves are £39 and offer similar protection, while Endura's Pro SL Primaloft gloves are warm enough for temperatures down to freezing and are waterproof, for £54.

Overall, though, these are gloves I could easily envisage using throughout winter, aside from the coldest or wettest rides (when I'd probably think twice about venturing out anyway), and with the quality of construction I'd expect them to last a good few years too.

Verdict

Very impressive gloves for cool rather than cold days