100% Brisker Cold Weather Glove

These 100% Brisker gloves are a decent option for riding hard in colder weather. The thin palm means you get a good feel for better bike control, and the insulated top panel keeps the worst of the cold off your hands. They could do with a windproof membrane, though.

• Pros: Good balance of insulation and grip feel
• Cons: Size up small, could do with being more windproof

The Brisker is a glove of two halves. On the top there's an insulated softshell layer to insulate your hands against the cold, and on the bottom there's a thin synthetic leather palm.

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The palm is nice and grippy, and thin enough that the feel on the levers is never vague. There's a rubber grip section on the index finger that helps with changing gear, and there's conductive thread on the thumb and index finger so you can fiddle with your phone without taking the gloves off. It's not the best I've tried but it works okay.

The idea here is that the outer layer insulates you against the cold, and the palm is out of the wind so it doesn't need to be as well insulated. And in practice, it works reasonably well: the insulated top layer is the bit of the glove that spends the most time in the wind. It's a pity that the softshell fabric doesn't wrap over the ends of the fingers, though, as I found my fingertips getting cold before anything else.

The Briskers could also do with a windproof membrane: the softshell fabric is a decent insulating layer but the wind can get through. In the rain they'll shrug off a shower, but they're not waterproof, nor are they claimed to be. The neoprene cuff keeps things snug at the wrist; in fact the whole glove is pretty snug, as sizing comes up small. I was wearing XXL gloves and they were only just big enough for my (admittedly pretty big) hands. Try before you buy if you can.

These gloves are available in 10 colourways, and the fluo orange ones gave me plenty of confidence in my hand signals being seen. After dark the big reflective logo does the same job. It's printed on the glove, and after a number of washes shows no sign of peeling. If fluo isn't your thing you can have a variety of flat colours, or camo.

Price-wise, these sit nearer the bottom of the market than the top, and are decent value for the performance. Of the last 20 pairs of full-finger gloves tested on road.cc, only one pair – dhb's Neoprene Cycling Gloves – are cheaper, by 99p; some are more than twice the price.

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Overall, these gloves are decent, but they're not quite there: the fingertips need more insulation and the softshell fabric needs to be more windproof. If you're riding hard and you just need to take the edge off the weather then they'll certainly do that job, and the thin palm means you don't feel like you've got your hands stuffed in a sleeping bag. But they're limited to in-between days, and dry ones at that. My preference for days like that is a neoprene glove: they don't feel bulky, they're a bit more windproof and work okay in the rain too. These Briskers are okay, though, and much better in terms of visibility.

Verdict

Decent, highly visible gloves for harder riding in cooler weather