THE VERDICT
It’s all about the combination of qualities
THIS TEST ENDED up being far closer than we expected, with all of the gloves performing well considering their bargain price tags. However the closeness of the results is more down to some gloves excelling in certain tests and failing in others, leading to a close average over all five criteria assessed. That said, one glove did stand out.
The Richa Ice Polars were noticeably better than their rivals, scoring good results in every test and withstanding the dunk test almost perfectly, which was very impressive. Their heatretention in the freezer didn’t match up to that on the road but as all-round winter gloves for under £100, they are certainly the pick of the crop. As a result, they get the RIDE Best Buy award.
The Weise Montana 15s are also an excellent option but lost points mainly down to fit and feel, which are interlinked. We asked for size Medium in all our gloves and Weise’s generous sizing saw them being a bit of a loose fit and that affected these two scores. If the fit had been better, they would have run the Richa close and the huge cuff was a nice feature. However, their warmth and waterproofing were excellent — the two key winter-glove qualities — and the fit could potentially be addressed with a different size. On that basis, we feel they are worthy of a Recommend award.
Although the Knox gloves were an excellent fit and gave good feel, they were ultimately let down by the largest heat loss in the freezer test and some water ingress in the dunk test.
While this is an extreme test, it does highlight any weaknesses and as warmth and waterproofing are key elements for a winter glove, we feel that they just miss out on a Recommended award, even though they did very well.
‘Gloves excelled in some tests and failed in others’