Lizard Skins Dry-Fiant Insulated Shoe Covers

Lizard Skins' Dry-Fiant insulated overshoes do a good job of keeping your feet warm and dry, but a bit more toe reinforcement would be nice.

For regular winter riding overshoes are a cost effective and simple way to keep shoes and feet warm and dry. Good pairs can make a real difference to how much you enjoy time on the bike in inclement conditions, and a bad pair ruin a day out.

Lizard Skins Dry-Fiant are lightweight and stretchy, with a water repelling surface and a microfleece lining, intended to keep the feet warm. They use a zip and Velcro closure that is positioned neatly on the side of the ankle. The base of the zip has a little loop tab that makes putting them on much easier. There is a Velcro closure on the underside of the shoe to allow for any wide fitting shoes.

There are some nice touches and details. The zip covers are a reflective material and there is some reinforcing to the toe of the shoe that I presume is intended to get longer wear from it. Sadly, the latter doesn't really stand up to regular push-offs and the toe has become torn on my pair fairly easily. This is a minor issue with what have been a pretty reliable pair of overshoes, and hasn't resulted in any major water ingress from soaked roads.

I am a regular commuter through the winter and often find myself needing different clothes choices for a morning and an evening. What I liked about the Dry-Fiants is that they are light and flexible enough to be packed down into a jersey pocket, pretty easy to put on even at the roadside, and provide a good measure of protection from the elements.

They are sufficiently waterproof for light showers, but struggled a bit with persistent rain and large amounts of spray from standing water. The benefit of them being so lightweight is that they dry quickly, whereas many of the heavy duty ranges absorb a lot more. They also offer a noticeable windproofing.

They are lightweight but with a microfleece lining that does extend the wearable temperatures a bit, although as the mercury dropped to 3 °C and below I did find my toes getting a little cold. For such a lightweight overshoe it has performed well in a broad variety of conditions.

Verdict

Impressive overshoes with some excellent details, let down slightly by a lack of proper reinforcing on the toes