The 9 Best Winter Cycling Gloves For Riding in the Cold (2024)

On a winter ride, your hands start to feel cold before the rest of your body. It’s difficult when you’re gripping the bar, but you need to keep them as warm as possible. If you can’t feel your fingers, you’ll have a difficult time shifting and braking, which are even more important when traversing icy winter roads. I grew up in Ohio near Lake Erie, where “winter” meant 32 degrees F, with cold winds coming off the water and snow that didn’t melt until March. If I went out riding without gloves, my fingers would get stiff and painful in about 10 minutes, sending me back inside to ask my mom to find me my “warm” gloves. (Moms always know these things.)

Winter cycling gloves come in two basic categories: Those that work for cool days with temperatures in the 40s and 50s and heavier gloves for temps near or below freezing. What you need will depend on where you live and your tolerance for cold, but most cyclists will need one, if not both to go out year-round. To help you sort through your options, we’ve put together this guide to the best winter cycling gloves, which includes a range of options suitable for a variety of conditions and riding styles.

More For Winter Pedaling: How to Layer For Cold-Weather Riding ● The Best Men’s Winter Cycling Jackets ● The Best Winter Cycling Hats

The Best Winter Cycling Gloves

• Best Overall: Showers Pass Crosspoint Waterproof Knit
• Best Value: Carhartt Waterproof Insulated
• Best Lightweight: Giro Xnetic Trail
• Best Lobster Gloves: Pearl Izumi AmFIB Lobster Gel
• Best Mid-weight: Giordana AV 200 Full Finger Winter

The Expert: A road, gravel, and aspiring mountain biker, I’ve been writing about cycling gear, bikes, health and wellness, and adventure travel for 15 years at publications like Bicycling, Runner’s World, Time, HuffPost, Adventure Cycling Magazine, and many others. I spend a good deal of the time I’m not working on a bike, either at home or overseas. I’ve cycled through most of the tri-state area in the U.S., a good deal of Europe, across the Silk Road route from Beijing to Istanbul, and through the Karakoram Mountains in Pakistan.

What To Consider in a Pair of Winter Cycling Gloves

How We Selected The Best Winter Cycling Gloves

Every glove on this list has been evaluated by our experienced team of test editors and contributors, who spent many hours throughout fall and winter wearing these gloves in a range of weather conditions and during a variety of rides. We had trail days (slower and shadier), long road rides and intense hammer fests (faster and more exposed), and casual-clothing city cruises (where you might not work up a good sweat). We pushed the limits of their insulation and put water-resistance claims to the test.

We also researched the market, surveyed user reviews, spoke with product managers and designers, and used our own experience wearing these gloves to determine the best options. We evaluated them based on performance, fit, price, and comfort to determine the gloves that will best serve you in your battle to keep riding through the winter comfortably.

This knit, waterproof glove has a mid-weight feel, with sufficient insulation for temperatures hovering around freezing. Most riders will find it reaches it limit at about 30-35 degrees, depending on how hard you’re riding.

One thing to note: The glove traps some body heat, so your fingers may be cold at first but will warm up within 15 minutes. Better yet, when the mercury climbs, your hands won’t feel hot and sweaty. If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like to pass up an opportunity to ride, weather be damned, this will keep your hands from being the weak spot on cold, rainy days.

Cycling-specific winter gloves are expensive. Most easily justify their cost with excellent breathability, dexterity, and bar feel. But if what you’re mainly after is warm hands without spending upwards of $50 dollars on a well-insulated pair, outdoor work gloves such as this pair from Carhartt are worth a look. They’re generally a bit bulky compared to cycling-specific options, but it’s hard to beat their warmth-per-dollar ratio.

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Giro’s Xnetic glove is a great shoulder season option for mountain bikers. When you’re riding in the woods, sheltered from the wind chill, you’ll often heat up much more rapidly than if you were on the road. And when you stop for a break, sweaty cold clothes can make it hard to get warm again. That’s where this super-sweat-wicking glove shined: It took the edge off chilly fall air (50-60 degrees) while we were working hard without over-insulating and getting soggy. When we stopped we didn’t have clammy, cold digits or wet fabric to chill us further. It fits pretty tight, so we would recommend sizing up from what you would normally order. Sticky rubber on the thumb and first two fingers add confidence as you shift and brake, and the pointer and thumb tips are touchscreen-compatible.

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We’ve been wearing Pearl Izumi’s AmFIB Lobster Glove for more than a decade. Made with 170g PrimaLoft Gold insulation, AmFIB soft-shell polyester-polyurethane fabric, and Ax Suede Laredo synthetic leather, it provides the kind exceptional warmth you’d get in a mitten. Yet it still allows for ample dexterity so you can operate both your shifters and brake levers. There’s also a gel palm pad for comfort while gripping your handlebars and touch screen compatibility on the index finger and thumbs.

The secret to the dexterity is that PrimaLoft Gold insulation, which provides exceptional warmth without adding bulk. Most very warm gloves are also very thick, which makes it difficult to locate the proper shifter and grip your brake levers. This pair keeps my hands warm during long weekend rides and daily commutes, even when the temperature dips below freezing, without getting in the way.

If you aren’t sure about going full lobster, we also love Pearl Izumi’s new AmFIB Evo Lobster Glove. It has separate index and middle fingers, offering more dexterity for working devices and electronic shifting and braking that only requires the tap of a button. It’s too soon to tell, but we hope they last another 10 years.

For cool days before a truly frigid winter temperature sets in, don this pair of stretchy, windproof, water-resistant gloves from Giordana. Each glove has a gel pad on the palm for cushioning and an extended gauntlet to keep wind and cold from sneaking in at your wrist.

Giordana fused Aqua Zero Eco, a water-repellent treatment, to the fabric to create a hydrophobic coating that works well in light drizzle or flurries. If you’re caught in a downpour or wet snowstorm, water will seep through these gloves after about 45 minutes, turning them into soggy, cold weights. They wring out easily though, and the suede at the thumb edge and the tech-touchpads on the index finger work exceptionally well for wiping condensation and fog from your glasses–like a mini, manual windshield wiper.

I’ve had the same pair for close to ten years, and the gloves are still in excellent shape and my go-to for fall and early winter. I even sometimes wear them during summer rain storms just for their glasses-wiping ability, sweaty hands be damned.

When you go out to ride in the elements, you don’t just throw a heavy coat over your bare torso, right? You layer. This three-layer glove system is designed to cover you in any weather. It starts with a sweat-wicking silk base, adds a thermal knit mid-layer, and gives you a choice of a windproof outer layer or a waterproof shell with a breathable membrane. Two of our testers wore them during a week of rough weather in early December that included sleet, the temperature dropping below freezing, a little snow, and not very much sunshine at all. On a 30-degree ride, their hands were cold at first but quickly became warm. The layers allowed them to take off the outer shell when needed without exposing their hands too much. And the gloves overlapped with sleeves without being bulky. The system kept their hands dry and warm through snow and ice, while offering more dexterity than one pair of thick gloves could.

Made with a stretchy, windproof nylon and filled with PrimaLoft insulation, Rapha’s Deep Winter Cycling Glove delivers warmth without excessive bulk. There’s synthetic suede on the palm for abrasion resistance as well as PrimaLoft insulation treated with a non-slip resin.

Unlike most other heavy winter gloves, the shell and membrane are bonded together, so the lining doesn’t pull or bag out when you pull the glove on and off. That makes for a closer, more streamlined fit, which in turn helps when you’re operating subtle shifter buttons.

What we like most about these gloves, though, is the double cuff: There’s a stretchy, knit inner cuff under the outer shell, which has a Velcro cinch strap. You can insert your jacket sleeves between the cuffs and tighten it up, sealing in warmth at the wrist.

Slip on this pair of lightly insulated gloves for your fastest rides this winter, and your hands will thank you. Ours did. The windproof and water-resistant back panel protected us from the icy wind chill, while the breathable, padded palm panel allowed sweat and excess heat to dissipate. We did find that if we weren’t working up quite as much of a sweat (i.e. while cruising to the post office), the glove wasn’t warm enough if the temperature was below 40 degrees. But if we were working hard, it was okay down to just above freezing. A soft nose-wiping pad on the thumb and touchscreen-compatible fingertips are thoughtful additions.

This battery-powered heated glove worked well for both mountain biking and road riding. Our tester reported that the glove kept her warm, but not too warm. The heater has three settings, and you can also turn it off when the temperature reaches the 40s or above. She began to feel the cold on her fingertips just a little in sub-27-degree weather. And, though it is quite puffy, the insulation doesn’t impede finger dexterity too much, which allowed her to shift and brake on road and cyclocross bikes.

The batteries lasted long enough, too; our tester wore them for 3 hours in 30-degree weather on the highest setting. They’re rechargeable and fit nicely into little zippered pockets on top of your wrists and don’t feel cumbersome. The power/level button is fairly large and sticks out a bit, though, so it’s easy to accidentally press and turn them down or off.

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Q+A With Expert Cyclist Vanessa Nirode