Headwear

This skullcap comes with a windproof band around the forehead and temples which keeps the cold air out when the temperature gets really low.

The band is made from Gore's Windstopper X-Free fabric which is a stretchy, fleece-backed, softshell fabric. It protects your forehead and the tops of your ears which, in my experience, are the areas that suffer most when the mercury is low, completely shutting out the cold air.

Castelli's Risvolto Winter Cap provides enough warmth for most winter conditions and comes with a stowable flap to cover your ears and the back of your head.

You can just about wear it under a helmet but you're making life hard for yourself there because it's not especially low profile. No, this is a hat that's aimed at those who ride without a lid.

Cometh the cold, cometh the reversible Storm Buff. Some might reason 28 quid a bit steep for a polyester cloth, even one with Gore Windstopper on one side, but the cost of a bad chill-especially before a big race, or lost income if you're self-employed is worth taking in to account... and Windstopper fabric isn't cheap.

What's good for keeping your head warm? A hat. And what about your ears? A hat with ear flaps. And what does it with style? A Fifo Cycle x Tokyo Fixed Earflap cap, that's what.

Castelli’s skullcap is warm and stretchy and it’s slimline enough to fit comfortably under your bike helmet.

Let’s be honest, skullcaps never look great. They’re like overshoes in that they’re ugly as sin but they do the job. File them under ‘necessary evil’. Castelli’s Viva Thermo Skully actually looks okay, though, in our humble opinion. Worn under a helmet, it’s acceptable, we’d say.

This one is predestined to get the usual Rapha critics all hot under the collar, so as they’ll be toasty warm enough already they don’t need to read any further. For the rest of you the Rapha Winter Collar is a wool mix tubey-scarf thing (yes, there's brand-name avoidance going on here) to protect the neck from the wind and provide a layer of warmth that a standard jersey or jacket collar can't provide.

Rapha’s Merino Hat is a pretty simple design and it does its job well whether worn on its own or underneath a helmet.

It’s a beanie, basically, made from four different panels that are flat-stitched together, plus a double-thickness band around the edge. Aside from a little pink Rapha tab, that’s about it in terms of design features. Like we said, simple.

This woollen 4 panel cycle cap from Octoput has ear flaps and peak is made entirely from recycled fabrics. Hand made in Columbus Ohio where they probably have the flaps permanently down, when ordering your cap you can choose the colour of every panel sewn into constructing this hat.

This cap is made of a wool mix tweed but there is more to it than just that. The fabric isn't that stuff you see country folk camoflaged in. This tweed has been removed from the fields and urbanised to make it something special. It uses Lumatwill, a woven fabric created by photographer Guy Hills and top fashion weaver Kirsty McDougal, the people behind Dashing Tweeds.

Thanks to Squirt’s Sweat Sucker the humble headband comes of age. Discrete, extremely effective and fully helmet compatible, gone are the days when turbo sessions and scorching summer training runs meant looking like an extra from fame, suffering unsightly rashes and perspiration running inside eyewear. However, the design mustn’t be tossed in with the civilian machine wash, works best in conjunction with a helmet (worn outside of the straps) and should be replaced every three months.