Over Christmas I bought these Castelli Nanoflex Legwarmers. For the past few weeks of cold weather, I’ve been testing and am quite pleased with the product.
Warmth
The material is warm and I used over a great tolerance of temperatures down to 4 – 5 degrees. Below that, and you would want something warmer, but that is true for most legwarmers. They feel quite light and stretchy. The inner lining makes them quite comfortable.
Nanoflex Technology
The new feature which made me want to buy them was the Nanoflex technology. This is a technology which claims to be excellent at repelling water. It makes them quite waterproof, but with being fully breathable at the same time. There claims are true, it is not fully waterproof, but it is excellent and repelling a light shower, your legs feel dry despite rain. It’s quite interesting to see the water appear as small droplets on the surface. (as an added bonus, it also seems to repel snot – an inevitability of cold weather riding)
Design
I chose the white colour, which looks good, though I wish the nanoflex logo was smaller or not there. From the picture, I wasn’t sure whether there would be a zip at bottom of legwarmer. But, fortunately, there is. For me this is a feature you really want in a legwarmer. The only drawback of buying white is you have to keep your legs away from the chain
Sizing.
I thought sizing was unusual for legwarmers. The legwarmers size L are very long from your hips to your toes. (I’m 6 foot 3). Put off by length, I went for the medium size. These are still longer than other types of legwarmers size (L). But, the medium were quite tight fighting, especially around the knee. For me, this is not a problem because I’m long and thin (6 foot 3, 10 stone). If you are a short, powerfully built sprinter, I wouldn’t buy these as the sizing is unlikely to be good for you.
Value for Money
You do pay more for the technology. £44 is not cheap for a pair of legwarmers. But, it is good to have a pair which are better at repelling water for rainy days. I would buy again, though, it might also be worth looking at an alternative such as Sportful No-Rain Legwarmers which promise similar product, but at £33.
Related
Video of Nanoflex
I bought some legwarmers from Aldi at about one tenth the cost of these. They’re warm, fit well, etc. – job done.
Don’t sneer, Aldi sell some great cycling kit – often better quality than “name” brands …