Sadly, there’s still no miracle but the Sportful Lobster Gloves are the best I’ve tested for cold and rainy rides. They cost less, they make packing easier, and they open up options for how you handle the inner layers to match your needs.
Pros
+
Excellent Dexterity
+
Tons of silicone on palm
+
Long cuff
+
Strong elastic at wrist
+
Relatively affordable
Cons
-
Lacks complete seam sealing
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If you've spent any amount of time riding when it's both cold and wet, you know the challenge that gloves present. I've spent countless hours looking for the magic glove that will stay dry and I've failed. When I put together the list of the best winter cycling gloves, I even included a section explaining how there is no such thing as a waterproof glove. Despite that, every expert I've spoken to has pointed to shell gloves as the best choice available and one of those experts works at sportful. This year the brand has a new shell option designed exactly for getting through the wettest, coldest, rides and they made sure I had the opportunity to share details with you.
In the past, I would leave the house with an Apidura racing saddle pack filled only with gloves. Gloves stop holding heat after a couple of hours of sustained rain and if I wanted to avoid frostbite, I’d need to swap them out. It’s a solution that works but it still means much of the ride my fingers are cold and I’m deciding if it’s time to change gloves yet. The Sportful Lobster gloves are different though and my hope was the design would mean a new era of comfortable winter riding. If you know the struggle of riding in the wet and cold and you are also searching for a solution, keep reading to see what I found.
Like other Sportful gloves, the Lobster gloves feel great on the bars (Image credit: Josh Ross)
Design and aesthetics
The greater outdoor industry, mountaineering in particular, is no stranger to the concept of a shell glove. I'm not young and I have a pair of Outdoor Research branded shell mittens from when I was a child. Practically speaking, they are ancient and yet the cycling industry doesn't seem to have caught on. I say this because in some ways what Sportful is doing with this Lobster glove is groundbreaking but for the purposes of describing the design, it really isn't.
What you get with the Sportful Lobster glove is a 2-layer waterproof membrane fabric in a Lobster glove profile. Sportful lists the fabric as 100% polyamide but you can read that as a nylon synthetic. The reference to the layers means there is an outer face fabric and nothing but the membrane on the inner. In the parlance of fabric, it's considered waterproof and breathable.
The only choice of colour is black and there are no reflective details. There are also no graphics, other than a very small Sportful logo, and all the fabrics are the same leaving almost nothing to break up the design. The actual feel of the fabric is pretty standard as well. It’s tough enough to stand up to use as a glove but does not quite match the tougher exterior of the Gore Wear C5 Gore-Tex Thermo winter cycling gloves.
Taped seams and a waterproof shell fabric mean nothing extra to saturate in the rain (Image credit: Josh Ross)
The most notable exterior detail, aside from the Lobster shape, is the silicone grip on the palm. The whole palm, and even wrapping over the ends of each of the two finger sections, has a tightly packed pattern of silicone angled slashes. The only relief spot is the thumb where there is a design that looks like it might be for touchscreen compatibility but isn't. There are actually no specific touchscreen-compatible details but they still work about as well as a wide range of gloves.
When it comes to fit, Sportful offers three sizes. Instead of labelling them small, medium, and large there is S/M, L/XL, and XXL. It's further complicated with no specific sizing in the guide that matches. Typically, I fall right between small and medium and tend to choose small for Sportful. For these, the smallest option is a perfect fit with enough room for layering while still retaining as much dexterity as expected.
Given that these are only a shell, the fit isn't critical. The one place where I suspect getting it wrong could be an issue is at the wrist. There is a long cuff that ends in an elastic drawstring but there's an additional spot of elastic at the wrist. It's somewhat tight, to help keep water out, and you'll want to get it close to the correct size.
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The long gauntlet makes the gloves easy to get on and helps keep rain out (Image credit: Josh Ross)
If you want to snug up the end, there is a pull tab and adjuster to make it easy(Image credit: Josh Ross)
Performance
Like most people I have no particular love for riding in the rain. Given the choice, I'd choose no rain but it's life in this part of the world and I'd rather ride than not ride. Weather is a funny thing though. When I need it to rain so I can test a pair of gloves, the forecast is dry.
I'd already run the Sportful Lobster gloves under the faucet. The performance was impressive and I came away with dry hands. That test doesn't tell the whole story though. Although you can learn if a fabric is technically waterproof there's another layer to actually keeping your hands dry. It's not always clear why a glove leaves you cold and wet but there's almost always a disconnect between hours spent riding with your hands in the rain and how waterproof a fabric is on a technical level. I knew that I needed at least an hour of hard rain but, of course, that's not what I got. The last hard rain came when the forecast called for dry weather and I left the house completely underdressed. What I had to settle for was merely light rain but I still learned a lot.
As I rode along a path watching the amount of rain building up on my Garmin, I had time to consider the leadup to this testing. Countless times I'd gone out for a ride with a new pair of gloves hoping that this time they would stay dry. When they eventually ended up as a soaking mass of fabric in my pack, I'd made lots of phone calls. I asked experts and product designers from Gore, 7mesh, Sportful, and a variety of other companies to try and figure out what the disconnect was and how I could keep my hands dry and warm. It became a bit of a personal mission and something I hoped I could share with readers but eventually considered it impossible and gave up.
A variety of explanations came forward but one piece of advice I heard over and over was that the answer would be a shell. With less material to hold the water, the membrane would have a better chance at working and an eventual change of the interior gloves would be less of a hassle. The people behind Dissent 133 gloves had the same idea but those are gloves. They will never be as warm as a lobster design plus there's a level of extra complication because of the closure system.
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This is hardly a fair test but it does help find weaknesses(Image credit: Josh Ross)
Most of the seams are taped, even across the elastic on the wrist(Image credit: Josh Ross)
For some reason, these seams have been overlooked(Image credit: Josh Ross)
It's an issue because when on the hoods, these are the seams taking the brunt of the rain(Image credit: Josh Ross)
Sportful keeps it very simple with the Lobster glove design. Just pull them on and the elastic at the wrist will keep them in place. You could tighten the end of the cuff but I never did. It's important to keep the wrist sealed anyway so keep the end inside the sleeve of your jacket. There is a little bit of extra detailing at the knuckles to help with dexterity but even though it seems unnecessary, it doesn't hurt anything.
I'm beating around the bush though; do they keep your hands dry? So far, they have but I don't think they will end up being perfect. Light Oregon rain is still substantial and so far, I haven't gotten them to leak. What I learned during those lighter rain rides is that they have a lot more dexterity than a bulky insulated glove and that the liner you choose matters a lot.
I'd had warnings that sweat could be a real issue if I ever successfully kept the rain out and that did become an issue. Choose your insulation carefully, I had to experiment a bit. The inner glove should be something without a membrane and it should match the warmth you need. In the end, I settled on Smartwool Merino Liner gloves and it was a good choice around 5 degrees C / 41 degrees F.
I did find something else though and I'd consider it an unfortunate mistake. Sportful tapes the seams on these gloves but not all of them. After some riding in light rain, I wanted to see how they handled the shower. The faucet isn't realistic because it's too easy but the shower isn't realistic because it's too hard. There is one seam that I think is problematic though. The part of the glove that houses the first two fingers doesn't have taped seams on the sides. When holding the hoods during a ride that seam faces up and in the shower, it eventually leaked.
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The silicone grip wraps over the fingers and without insulation there's no bulk meaning you get a lot of dexterity even with the lobster design(Image credit: Josh Ross)
Sportful says this detail is to help with the dexterity(Image credit: Josh Ross)
Smartwool liner gloves are a perfect companion to the Sportful Lobster gloves.(Image credit: Josh Ross)
Verdict
As I said, the shower isn't a realistic test of what it's like to ride in the rain. What I think it points out is that Sportful should have taped those seams but also that there continues to be no magic. I expect if it rains hard enough, and I ride for long enough, water will come through the untapped seams. The Sportful Lobster gloves aren't perfect but they are still my current favourite option for riding when it's both cold and wet.
Part of what I like is that they are warm and comfortable. I love the way Sportful adds so much silicone grip to the palms of their gloves. A big consideration though is that all gloves fail. Coming home with four or five pairs of bulky gloves that are soaking wet is a hassle. You also have to own them and good gloves aren't cheap.
The Sportful Lobster Gloves give more options. They won't hold water themselves so you only need a single shell. Adding a collection of inexpensive merino gloves is quite a bit cheaper. You can also get creative with what you do for the liner. Personally, I'm going to embrace wet hands and see if a pair of neoprene gloves are warm enough if I put them inside these Sportful Lobster shell gloves. I expect it will take a while before I’m willing to leave the house with less gloves but I also think the Sportful Lobster gloves are going to eventually mean it’s no longer a necessity.
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Testing scorecard and notes
Design and aesthetics
Stylish gloves do exist and these aren’t them. On the design side things are very strong but this would get a perfect score if every seam was taped.
8/10
Wet Weather Performance
As good as it gets for what is out there but as mentioned, there are some seams that aren’t taped and they ultimately impact the performance.
8/10
Cold Weather Performance
There’s no insulation but they are windproof and you add the appropriate insulation for your needs.
7/10
Comfort and fit
With a glove like this, fit isn’t super important but they match industry standards
10/10
Value
MSRP is about what you’d expect for a good pair of winter gloves but you only need one shell and that brings down the price of your whole system.
Josh hails from the Pacific Northwest of the United States but would prefer riding through the desert than the rain. He will happily talk for hours about the minutiae of cycling tech but also has an understanding that most people just want things to work. He is a road cyclist at heart and doesn't care much if those roads are paved, dirt, or digital. Although he rarely races, if you ask him to ride from sunrise to sunset the answer will be yes.
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 140 lb.
Rides: Salsa Warbird, Cannondale CAAD9, Enve Melee, Look 795 Blade RS, Priority Continuum Onyx
