Madison DTE Stellar Tech Isoler Thermal Leg Warmers With DWR

With minimal seams and no zip, the Madison DTE Stellar Tech Isoler Thermal Leg Warmers With DWR are comfortable to wear and keep you pleasingly warm, but the water-repelling treatment is a little lacklustre.

Check out more options in our guide to the best arm and leg warmers for cycling.

Including a DWR (durable water repellent) coating is a nice touch for sprinklings of rain and puddles, but here I don't think it's a feature to base your buying decision on, as I just don't think it does much to keep you any drier than those without. I've worn these in pretty grimy and soggy conditions, and while they could shrug off the occasional small puddle splash, they got saturated pretty quickly when riding through any real puddles or from constant spray off the roads.

On dry days, though, they do keep you nicely warm. They're at the thicker end of the scale, and work well when the weather is colder rather than those transitional days where you might want your legs covered for some of your ride and then exposed for other bits.

They do best in temperatures around the higher single digits into the lower double digits, in my opinion, keeping me pleasantly warm in that range.

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I've worn them for up to seven hours on the bike and have been impressed by the comfort they offer. With just a couple of seams, one each side, there's less chance of any chafing compared with designs made with more panels.

This pairs nicely with the thick silicone gripper at the top, which is comfortable against the skin yet grippy. I had no issues with them not staying up, even when totally saturated.

The length worked well for me, too; I have relatively short legs for my height, and found these long enough to cover everything, without being too long.

They also include a substantial amount of reflective material at the bottom to aid visibility throughout the darker days, although when riding in poor conditions I found that muck tended to flick up off the road and pretty much cover these sections. 

Value

At £29.99, these are pretty well priced, especially with features such as the nice big gripper and reflective sections.

Gorewear's Shield leg warmers, for example, come in at £49.99, but then they use Gore-Tex Infinium material, which Ed said helped to keep him dry, so worked a bit better than the water resistance here.

George was also impressed with the GripGrab AquaRepel 2 warmers' ability to keep water out, but at £65 they come in at more than twice the price of the Madisons.

They are undercut by Decathlon's Van Rysel Cold Weather Cycling Leg Warmers, though, which are just £19.99. We haven't tried those, but Stu was very impressed with the Van Rysel Cool Weather knee warmers.

Conclusion

Overall, these warmers do a decent job of helping to keep you warm and clean when out in grim weather. The water resistance is a bit underwhelming, but for the money they're not a bad option, and the reflective sections are a bonus – before they get too splattered.

Verdict

Comfy and warm with a good fit, but the DWR treatment doesn't add a lot