...is not a phrase I ever imagined I would use, yet here we are:
Okay, it's not my first choice of colour, but if there's a buff that proclaims me to be both a ciclista and an antifascista then I'm going to wear it.
This comes from Ciclista Ciclista, in Germany, though sadly they seem to have shut up shop for the indefinite. Shame.
"...I can see all lobster-claws in my way..."
That is how the song goes, right?
All of which terrible punning serves only to introduce the fact that I bought myself a pair of lobster-claw cycling gloves back in the autumn, thinking I wanted warmer hands when winter came calling. After much open-mouthed gawping at the cost of such gloves from established brands, these are what I ended up getting:
No, I wasn't especially familiar with VeloChampion as a brand either. But these were being sold as new on eBay for a tenner. I took a chance.
And you know what? They're excellent, probably the toastiest cycling gloves I've ever had. The claw design, allowing your fingers to keep each other warm, has been a real boon. In fact, it has taken until this week's sub-zero temperatures for me to get even slightly chilly hands cycling - that's how good these have been. Very comfy too, with well-placed padding. And although they were not advertised or sold as being waterproof, I've completed 25-minute rides in steady rain and emerged with bone-dry hands too. Your mileage may vary in a downpour, but I can only speak for my own experience so far.
Downsides? Well, the glossy black stripe on the back isn't really to my taste, but even that isn't gaudy or bling, is it? That said, the gloves could use some reflective details for these dark winter nights. Oh, and if the cuffs went 5 or 10 millimetres further up my sleeve, I wouldn't complain. But these are minor niggles, for what are properly good gloves and, at the secondhand price I paid for them, an absolute steal.
TLDR: warm, comfortable and even showerproof, these lobster claw gloves are terrific. ★★★★☆
BUY: seems that these are no longer available from VeloChampion, but you might be lucky and find some on eBay like me.
Full disclosure: I bought these with my own money. If anyone wants to give me kit in exchange for an honest review, I'm open to that, but unless I explicitly say otherwise everything I review on here will be sourced and paid for by yours truly.
You know when you have your annual appraisal at work, and you're supposed to say how many of your objectives for the year you actually met? I always seem to list several as "partially met" as in, yes, I did something but not everything. Looks like my cycling goals for 2024 were similar... remember, I'd set myself these targets:
This is how I ended up:
So I fully met goals 3 and 4, and got pretty close (96.9% of the way) on goal 2. I fell someway short (only 86.5% there) on goal 1 though, distance. Sigh.
Anyway, the other part of the annual appraisal is to look forward and set objectives for the year ahead. My cycling goals are very unoriginal, in that they are retreads of last year's, but since no-one but me reads this, who cares about that? Without further ado then, my cycling goals for 2025 are as follows:
If goals 1 and 2 look watered down from last year, well, they are - SMART goals need to be Achievable, right, we all know that from the usual appraisal spiel. As for goals 3 and 4, they're going to be hard; I currently have no sportives planned and, unlike last year, no marathon cycling holidays planned either. "Stretch goals" though, right? So watch this space, where I will continue to document my failure in a series of graphs, perhaps quarterly this year rather than monthly. What a time to be alive.