Triban 900 Winter Cycling Gloves

This latest incarnation of Decathlon's top-model Triban 900 Winter Cycling Gloves features a few handy (sorry) improvements over the previous version that makes them among the best winter gloves for the money – and they stand comparison with gloves costing twice as much.

Decathlon says these gloves are designed to keep your hands toasty down to zero Celsius, and that's exactly what they do. They also do a surprisingly good job of fending off the wet for gloves that make no claim to being more than 'water-repellent'.

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What we have here is a softshell outer glove with a fleece lining sewn in, and a soft, flexible palm in Chicron synthetic suede. The fleece lining keeps your hands warm, the softshell stops the wind dead in its tracks and fends off showers, while the palm provides decent grip, and the fingertips have patches of conductive stuff so you can operate a touchscreen.

There's always a trade-off in winter gloves between warmth and bulk. The Triban 900 winter gloves aren't as bulky as the Galibier Deep Winter gloves I reviewed a few weeks ago, but they're not quite as warm as those gloves either. Where the Galibiers point and laugh at temperatures a bit below zero degrees, the Triban gloves start to let the chill in.

On the other hand, the Triban 900 winter gloves are definitely overkill if the weather warms up a bit. On a morning dash to the office when the air temperature was about 8°C my hands were getting distinctly warm.

On the whole, though, they're just the job for those winter months when the temperature spends its time sulking in the low single figures of the Celsius scale.

With those low temperatures usually comes rain, and while they're not billed as waterproof, just water-repellent, the Triban 900 winter gloves keep water off for long enough to finish a typical commute or seek shelter. If riding in insanely wet weather is your thing then you're much more hardcore than me and you want something like the Endura Pro SL Primaloft Waterproof gloves Mat raved about. But they're more than twice the price.

Compared to the previous top-of-the-range winter gloves from Decathlon, called B'Twin 900 winter gloves at the time, the Triban 900 winter gloves have a slightly longer cuff to make it easier to overlap them with your jacket, and the cuff is a little bit roomier thanks to a bit of Lycra under the Velcro closure. That means they'll overlap a jersey or jacket better than the last version.

There's a pull-tab to help get them on that extends from the palm past the cuff and plays host to a plastic press-stud so you can click them together for storage. As someone who can never seem to find the other one of whichever gloves I want to wear, I'm really pleased to see that. Now I won't be able to find either of them, but at least I'll know they're together. Somewhere.

The black version of these gloves is currently on sale at £17.99, which makes them far and away the best value winter gloves you can buy. There's a high-vis yellow version too, for £24.99, but given the way gloves inevitably get grubby I'd suggest sticking with black and relying on the reflective stripes on the back to alert drivers of your presence.

> Buyer’s Guide: 22 of the best winter cycling gloves

What's in a name? The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that it says 'Van Rysel' on these gloves and not 'Triban'. Van Rysel is Decathlon's designation for more serious and sporty cycling kit, where Triban usually indicates a more recreational type of cycling. Maybe Decathlon couldn't quite decide which camp riding in cold weather falls into so decided to have an each-way bet, marking them Van Rysel on the gloves but Triban on the website.

Whatever you choose to call them, these are very good winter gloves at an excellent price.

Verdict

Toasty gloves at an excellent price