Had higher hopes than what I got. For starters, I expected a glove that had "arenberg" in title to have thicker padding. I have a pair of corsa rosso road fingerless gloves and the padding between to two is a bit similar. I had bought these with the purpose of using them cool weather gravel. To that effect my dainty hands were not quite as comfortable as I hoped. Another shortcoming is the snot strip. It's suede rather than fleece and thus not very good. The grip is decent but they made no effort to add touch screen compatibility. Considering how bike computers are heading in that direction whether we like it or not this would make it tough to adjust things let alone check your phone without taking off your gloves. I'll give these gloves credit for being gloves and better than nothing for shoulder season. I'm hoping as they break in the sharpness in the fabric between the thumb and first finger will soften.
Let's start with the one issue I see in this piece. The zipper is dead center and hits you right in the adams apple. It should be offset. With that in mind, if you are between sizes you need to go with the larger one, otherwise the pressure on the neck will be more noticeable. How do I know that. I first bought the L and then got the XL. The L fits well, but I feel pressure in the neck. The XL is looser of a fit. I would prefer the large with a redesign on the neck area.
The unfinished sleeves are awesome - providing no bulk when layering. Everything is like a warm hug with this piece. I feel it should fit fairly snug so that you can layer - putting this mid-layer over a skin layer and under a jacket - to add extra warmth. The current Assos jackets are meant more for high intensity efforts where you are cranking out heat. If you are not putting out a lot of effort you need something like the GT mid layer. This philosophy is an exconmical one since you do not need a bunch of different jackets for varying conditions, you just layer in what you need by combining fewer layers to achieve the jacket of the day.
I prefer this over the older style of dedicated jackets. The GT mid layer can be used for other activities than cycling. I use it as a warm compression layer for golfing in colder weather,
For pretty much everything else I wear Castelli L(arge) size (bibs, jersey, jackets, etc) so I thought I should get an L for the arm warmers too (it doesn't help that Castelli does not publish a sizing guide that considers hand length/circumference). Well, that was wrong, the L warmer barely sits on my hand, it's probably not going to slip on its own but it doesn't feel like it sits firmly on the hand either. Next time I'll get an M...
The other problem is that some of the stitching has already started to come off after 3 wash cycles (I use the lightest setting on the washing machine for bike clothing). I think my cheaper Pearl Izumi warmers held longer.
