gloves for bicycling in the beastly cold

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so when the thermometer plunged to a beastly 6 degrees F in New York City last week, I liberated these gargantuan Swedish gloves from the back of the coat closet. My husband had received them as a holiday gift a few years ago. He wore them exactly once on a frigid day, to the dog run, where his canine pals immediately mistook his hands for large plush toys. Channeling Chewbacca helped keep my hands cozy in the bike lane, but in the end these mitts turned out to be no better suited to cycling than to dog-walking. Dexterity for shifting gears or ringing a bike bell? Forget about it. And, they shed all over my brake hoods. Still the best fit: The road cycling gloves in last week’s post on must-have winter cycling accessories.