Winter gloves liner woe « Singletrack Forum

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Winter gloves liner woe

52 posts & 39 voices | Started 3 months ago by StefMcDef | Latest reply from langylad

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StefMcDef - Member

I paid £35 for a new pair of Sealskinz gloves from a local shop that was having a closing down sale just before Christmas. So unfortunately there's no taking these bastard things back.

But they have have the most infuriating, fundamental design flaw - the digits in the lining are not in any way attached to the digits of the outer.

So when you pull your sweaty, clammy paws out of them after a ride, no matter how much infinitesmal care you take to tease your fingers out of them, with the intent of leaving the liner fingers inside the outer fingers, the liner fingers stay stuck to your sweaty digits to some extent and end up a little bit inside out.

Meaning the next time you try to put 'em on, you have this random mess of half-furled liner fingers that won't reinsert to the requisite glove outer digits. The elasticated cuff of the glove is too tight to get a hand in beyond to push the liner fingers into the digits where they need to be, rendering the gloves pretty much unusable.

AAARGHH!!!!!!

Anyone else come across this problem? Got any suggestions for avoiding it or putting it right?

Apart from the obvious, don't spunk £35 on Sealskinz gloves that are a useless, badly-designed pile of Tom Kite?

Posted 3 months ago #
Northwind - Member

Extremely common unfortunately. There is a cure though- just gather up all the useless bloody things and build a pyre, then throw the designers on it.

You can sometimes poke it back in with a stick but it's still frustrating... I once cut the lining out of a brand new pair of DHB gloves right at the top of glentress, in the snow, at night, imagine my delight at that (to their immense credit Wiggle warrantied them)

If you want seriously warm winter gloves that won't mess you about, Fox Antifreeze are worth checking out.

Posted 3 months ago #
Superficial - Member

Yeah, mine are the same. Drives you mental when you've got cold stiff hands and you want them back in the gloves (which, to their credit are pretty toasty) but first you have to faff for 20 minutes (not an exaggeration - on Snowdon in February when my fingers weren't really working) to get the inners back in where they should be.

Mine are 4-5 years old now - I assumed they might have fixed this ridiculous oversight. Perhaps not. My only suggestion would be take care when taking the gloves off. If I'm careful it's not such a huge problem getting them back on.

Might try the Fox ones.

Posted 3 months ago #
mrmo - Member

just hold the finger ends when you take the gloves off, in over 20 years almost every glove i have had has been designed this way and it actually helps sometimes as you can dry the glove quicker by pulling the liner out.

Posted 3 months ago #
Rockape - Member

I am with Northwind on this Fox Antifreeze are brilliant with there seperate liners. I have some Endura ones and just like your seal skinz the liners comes out with your fingers when you need to remove and impossible to gert right when putting back on. The only wayis to poke something down each finger to get it all sorted before putting on.

Posted 3 months ago #
gonetothehills - Member

Yes - the Endura ones for me were just pants. Such a BASIC design flaw. Surely they tested them...? I got some Altura Night Vision ones a few weeks back from Cyclestore. Bargain price and the separate liner / outer works very well. Warmest (least cold) fingers I've had for many a winter.

Posted 3 months ago #
takisawa2 - Member

Aldi's £5 neoprene gloves, with a Decathlon £4 pair of thin lycra running gloves here. Works very well. Could you not seperate the inner & outer...?
I know you shouldnt have to but you're stuck with them now.

Posted 3 months ago #
Marko - Member

I feel your pain . . .

Exact same scenario here, so I sent them back to Seal Skinz - 48 hours late a brand new pair arrived.Fantastic customer service.

Same thing happen to the replacemnt pair, so I cut them up in a mad frenzy and used the material to patch up a pair of trousers.

Hth
Marko

Posted 3 months ago #
wwaswas - Member

I did stitch through the ends of the fingers on a set of gloves to attach the liners permanently after one too many 'sweaty hand pulling liner out half way through a ride' incidents. Carrying a spare pair of gloves 'just in case' seemed ludicrous.

It worked fairly well - obviously there was a small hole in the end of every finger but it didn't seem to let much water in.

Generally I now check when I buy and avoid anythign with a floating liner.

Posted 3 months ago #
FuzzyWuzzy - Member

Err it really isn't that difficult to keep the liners in, I have a couple of pairs of sealskinz and some Endura that don't have the liners stitched in at the fingers but I've never pulled the liners out. I'm not even especially careful taking them off, just grip a couple of the finger ends and that's it. I feel more sorry for LBS staff, I went to try on some gloves in Cycle Surgery last winter and every frickin pair on the rack had the liners pulled by the last numpty to try them on.

Posted 3 months ago #
kimbers - Member

I just use some altura liners in my regular gloves. keep my fingers nice n toasty and no hassles getting them on or off
I have ordered some of the on one winter gloves only 5 quid on offer at the moment, not here yet though

Posted 3 months ago #
wwaswas - Member

Err it really isn't that difficult to keep the liners in

every frickin pair on the rack had the liners pulled

If they pull out in the shop when the gloves are dry, people's hands are dry and they're generally not in a mad rush to sort something out and get moving again then the issue is with the design of the gloves.

Posted 3 months ago #
trail_rat - Member

yes yes and yes **** pet hate !

my sealskinz are the best for not doing this tbh.

my alturas are garbage and my girlfriends alturas were even worse ..... mid way through a freezing snowy 60k out and back on the roads she took her gloves off and the liner came out. REsult - i end up with numb hands as i gave her my gloves to stop her moaning.....then she got a puncture on the front wheel ....

so i gave her my jacket and rode home alone to get the car - she doesnt have the strength to get the tire off by this point and my hands were too numb i had no dexterity !

Posted 3 months ago #
creamegg - Member

If you want seriously warm winter gloves that won't mess you about, Fox Antifreeze are worth checking out.

I bought a pair of fox anti freeze gloves last week and had the same issue with the liner. Although kept my hands warm and snug, overall im not that impressed with the Fox Antifreeze. The stitching came undone at the base of the finger leaving a gaping hole which appeared on 2nd day of riding. Later that day I had a minor fall which ended up in the liner and outer glove tearing on the palm of the hand. LBS said to return them tho as Fox will prob exchange! My Fox Digit glove on the other hand are superb and are still nearky like new despite 2 years of use and crashing but theyre not waterproof and dont keep out the cold.

Posted 3 months ago #
iainc - Member

I binned some Endura ones last year for same reason, posted up here and much agreement and similar experiences. replaced with Gore ones and they are fine - liner is stiched to finger ends !

Posted 3 months ago #
jimification - Member

Red light is flashing....This is a Hot Topic for me!.

This bloody design feature boils my **ss (in the traditional Singletrack fashion). It's when you really need your gloves after fixing a puncture on a cold, wet ride that you find out that the bloody fingers have half pulled out! Grabbing the fingers hard as you remove them helps but doesn't eliminate the problem. Maybe the non stitched ones should come with a wooden spoon in the packaging? (quite lightweight & the handle is a good shape to shove them back in)

It seems hard to believe that any of these gloves were properly tested. Surely, the first damp winter rider would have come back with: "well they're quite nice but the fingers pull out - needs work"... Also gear reviews never mention this issue, which leads me to suspect they don't test stuff properly either...

I can't help you but I can tell you to avoid Altura Night Vision gloves - mine exhibit this behaviour like a mofo!

Glad to hear that the Gore ones are stitched..Maybe we could compile a list of winter gloves where the liners are stitched in?

Posted 3 months ago #
Shibboleth - Member

Marko - Member

I feel your pain . . .

Exact same scenario here, so I sent them back to Seal Skinz - 48 hours late a brand new pair arrived.Fantastic customer service.

Exactly the same for me and a friend, we both bought them and used to spend hours sitting on the edge of his car boot furiously poking and prodding the liners back into the fingers before we could ride. Infuriating!

Sent them back and we both received new pairs that seem to have addressed the problem.

Great company, send them back!

Posted 3 months ago #
jonba - Member

Interesting because the ones I bought last year don't do this. Neither to my ALtura night visions.

My suggestions are, like helmets, to try before you buy. I spent some time in my LBS seeing if the fingers were stitched in.

NExt one is to wear thin liner gloves as this makes it less likely that yuo'll pull the fingers out. Fine when its -5C but less so when it is warmer as your hands wil get hot.

Finally, if you are on a ride where winter gloves are essential I always carry a spare pair of dry ones. Having made the mistake of once doing this on top of winter hill in the snow with a 20mile ride home, never again will I be caught out.

Posted 3 months ago #
CaptJon - Member

I lost the use of a pair in a similar situation. I spent ages trying to get the liners into the right holes, but just gave up. It is a massive design flaw. I always check now, and avoid any which have been designed by idiots.

Posted 3 months ago #
ir_bandito - Member

Had the same problem with a pair of Endura Strikes. Sent them back, got new ones, same thing again. takes a couple of hours with a knitting needle to get the fingers straight.

Got a pair of Specialized Sub-Zeros now. Fleece liner, waterproof outer. They're SUPPOSED to be detached, so the system works!

Also, another problem with the Strikes is the waterproof membrane is inside the glove. So you head out on a grim day, the outer (and insulation) gets wet but your hands are dry, you go higher up, the water freezes, bingo, you have dry hands surrounded by blocks of ice. AARRGGH!!

Posted 3 months ago #
teamhurtmore - Member

Common design flaw - had a nightmare with my gloves a couple of days ago with exactly that. Took over 5 mins trying to get them back on - but at least these were my first ever Aldi try and only £4!!

The same goes for tea pots - why do they all drip/spill. Its a fundamental requirement after all????

Posted 3 months ago #
Harry_the_Spider - Member

My Berghaus ski gloves do the same! If they are anything but bone dry on the inside you can't take them off without pulling the liner out.

Posted 3 months ago #
Spud - Member

Just bought some Garneau Sotchi gloves for this reaason, no liner and toasty and warm. My Endura Strike have always been hopeless.

Posted 3 months ago #
yoshimi - Member

ir-bandito - quite intersted in thos sub-zeros or maybe the radiants - what are your thoughts so far?

Posted 3 months ago #
PaulD - Member

The glove issue is just part of my winter ride preparations.

I take 2 pairs for this eventuality as well as sometimes wearing very thin liners.
I also keep an emergency disposable 'hot-pack' in a hard container (the wrapping can get torn in a bag) to keep my digits warm at a mechanical.
When it is really cold, I take a burning charcoal stick in its holder and sac in a pocket...they burn very slowly when nearly starved of oxygen and often last 6-8 hours.

I have poor ciculation in my hands and need every help I can get.

I tried Chinese (ebay) battery heated gloves but at under 0.5watt each, it was not evident they were actually working!

Anyone tried the Ame heated grips sold in the USA?

PaulD

Posted 3 months ago #
jambalaya - Member

You are much better off with seperate silk liners which can be bought from ski shops etc. Then put normal gloves on top. The silk liners also sometimes "stick" but they are easy to extract and sort out.

When buying lined winter gloves it's better to try a size up and also as stated hold the fingers when you are pulling them off. It is a design/ease of manufacture feature of the gloves that the lines are not stitched to the outers.

Posted 3 months ago #
yunki - Member

a large pair of cheap wool gloves over the top of my regular summer gloves seems to do the trick very nicely..

Posted 3 months ago #
teamhurtmore - Member

+1 for liners, just ordered another pair after this week's bad experience with my cycle gloves

Posted 3 months ago #
ir_bandito - Member

I've got the older model:

I love them. When your hands warm up, you can lose the outer shell and just ride with the liners as they're designed to be worn on their own, not just as liners.
Only slight flaw is the classic Specialized clothing quality - the outers are falling apart a bit at the seams, but that is with 2 winters of use, hopefully they'll last another one.

Posted 3 months ago #
FuzzyWuzzy - Member

The sub-zeros are good gloves but I find them a little bulky and they commit the cardinal sin of having too short a thumb so are annoying to use when riding on the hoods on a road bike.
+1 for using silk/merino liners though, make any (windproof) gloves a lot warmer and less hassle removing them.

Posted 3 months ago #
jonba - Member

I thought of another option which is to go SS or twist shift then you can ride in mittens.

Posted 3 months ago #
Superficial - Member

Fixie? Or do you do some kind of space-handed four-finger braking?

Posted 3 months ago #
yoshimi - Member

hhmmmm local shop is doing them subaeros at £30 and radiants at £26 - thanks for replying il-bandsito

Posted 3 months ago #
plop_pants - Member

All my gloves have this annoying trait. One little trick I use,
so that I can at least get them on before a ride, is to put the gloves on straight after they have been washed. If the inner's fingers have pulled out then it is easier to get them back in place when the gloves are wet.

Posted 3 months ago #
epicyclo - Member

Yunki +1 - wool gloves.

Waterproofing in gloves is overrated

I wear £5 Tesco hairy wool gloves. Keeps my hands warm in most situations except heavy rain, and they're not that cold even then. I have worn them in the last 4 'Puffers.

Haven't seen them in Tesco for a couple of years though - lucky I stocked up.

Maybe brushing ordinary wool gloves with a wire brush would produce the same result - I'll probably have to find out this year because I've worn out my stock.

Posted 3 months ago #