Biologic Cipher cycling gloves

Biologic's Cipher gloves brilliantly solve the problem of using a smartphone during cool-weather rides. They're not warm enough for the chilliest depths of winter, but they really come into their own when it's not quite so cold.

In the days before touchscreen smart phones taking over the world, and your jersey pocket, fiddling with a phone in colder months was a pretty simple affair; you scrabbled around in your jersey with yout well-padded fingers and probably dropped it on the floor. When you retrieved it, though, it still worked and the handy buttons worked really well, even with the most wintery of winter gloves.

Touchscreens have made this trickier in a few ways. Firstly, those touchscreens are ruddy slippery and the chances of dropping them while wearing gloves seems all too likely. Secondly unless you want to take your gloves off then you'll be using your nose to unlock it and call out for that precious lift home. Finally, bike computers are increasingly using touchscreen technology and most of us want to use them beyond September.

BioLogic Cipher gloves aim to resolve the last issue with index and thumb pads coated with 3M's silver conductive fabric, and they work fantastically well. The gloves are quite light (more Autumn/Spring than deep winter) and so the finger pads are small and close to the fingertips. They are positioned in the right place and are flat to the finger. In terms of function they offer very accurate touchscreen use that is more than good enough to unlock, make calls and texts.

The finger pads aren't too slippery and there is a light grip texture to the palm and fingers that helps in holding a glass-backed phone. The gloves themselves are light, grippy and flexible and made from a softshell type material, but they aren't all that insulating and struggle to keep digits warm in temperatures under 9 °C. They have a stretchy back panel with small strips of reflective piping, and a Velcro wrist tab. They are cut a little high, more like a summer mitt with full fingers. When wearing long sleeved jerseys or base layers there is no overlap between the gloves and the cuffs and on chilly mornings this was noticeable.

The close fitting fingers mean that fetching items from jersey pockets is pretty straightforward, but above all it is the ease of touch screen use and grippyness that makes these gloves successful. BioLogic appear to focus on accessories like cases, mounts and lights, but this bit of clothing (oddly found in the 'Sensors and Computers' section of their website) is very effective, and one that I have returned to as the winter weather has become more mild.

Verdict

Exceptional touchscreen performance in well-fitted and thought-through Spring/Autumn gloves