So it arrived early! A “bar mitt” for esk8. This was quickly put together based on a request to Bar Mitts. Since it has no official name, I’m just going to refer to it as the esk8 oven mitt, for obvious reasons:
It’s pretty simple – a pogie, but sealed on all ends (other than where you insert your hand of course) and a velcro cinch that closes around your wrist. The velcro will attach to any part of the mitt – it doesn’t have to loop back onto itself.
Here’s a shot with my hand on top of it, wearing a Flatland 3D fingerless glove and holding a Hoyt puck. There’s a good amount of room in there. I could almost completely flare out my fingers.
The interior is red, with a little fabric handle at the very end for you to grab if you need leverage on the mitt; this helps to prevent the fabric from riding up your hand as you cinch it down.
For reference, here’s my hand with a couple of tape measures for reference (it’s what the Bar Mitts folks used to get the oven mitt sized correctly):
Weight for the oven mitt is 113 grams. The Flatland fingerless glove is 85 grams. The Arc’teryx mitten below is 100 grams (but also ridiculously light for what it is; typical mittens are heavier).
In terms of looks it’s not going to win any beauty contests. However for those of you in the Midwest, you understand that the second winter shows up (and I’m talking real winter, not “oh it’s so cold in the 40s!”) fashion pretty much flies out the window and functionality reigns supreme. So how well does it work?
Pretty damn well. I’ve had previous experience with Bar Mitts and they’re no joke. I’ve ridden my bike in 10º weather with blasting winds shoving the wind chill below 0, and my hands, without any gloves or liners, were warm. Not slightly cold but tolerable, but actually toasty warm. These are made of the same material (neoprene) though without inner fleece liners.
I took it out today, though it wasn’t too cold. Actual reading outside my door was 40ºF, and I was averaging 20MPH on a 30 minute ride after dark. That puts the wind chill at speed at around 31ºF, colder if there was actual wind that added on (which there was depending on direction). Zero wind was penetrating into the oven mitt. Tactile feel of the puck was excellent. The entire time my hand was VERY warm – borderline too warm. An adjustable vent would address this, but that’s in a “nice to have” category; if it was any warmer, I would switch to normal gloves. On a tactile scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being bare hands and 1 being trying to use a remote while wearing Arc’teryx Fission SV mittens one size too big (which I own and will use on my non-control hand), these were a 9.
If you have proper cold weather gear, you probably have shells and midlayers with their own wrist cinchers. Here’s what it looks like with a Fjallraven Keb Eco-Shell sealed against the mitt, as well as a Fjallraven Expedition Pack Down jacket (which I’ll sometimes combine depending on conditions and temperature).
At this point cold air isn’t even going to drift in. Combine this with a decent gaiter, tech pants and trouser shells like this Fjallraven Bergtagen shell in Hokkaido Orange (what can I say, the Fjallraven stuff rocks), along with some hardcore wind-proof calf socks, and you’re going to be a portable, rolling warming station down to some extreme temperature and wind chills.
How does this compare to the ice scraper? I would put this a two notches above it. The ice scraper is great, but they’re usually not made of the kind of material you want to be doing active things in. Depending on which type you go with, a number of them aren’t very windproof or even wind resistant; the Bar Mitt oven mitts are basically a wall against the wind and the neoprene should stand up to a beating. Basically quality is all over the place and hard to predict for ice scrapers, but the esk8 oven mitt is basically a known quantity.
Finally, if you’ve ever used mittens before in any activity, you know that you have to carefully consider the order in which you toss on your gear. For obvious reasons, once you put the oven mitt on, you’ve essentially lost a hand. If you’re tossing a mitten on your other hand you’re now about as externally agile with your hands as a bear with anesthetized paws.
Price was $50 for the single oven mitt. Not the cheapest, but it’s in-line with how pogies generally run and this was entirely bespoke.
Pros:
- Warmest solution I’ve run across
- No significant impact on using control surfaces
- Has room for layering other gloves; you could easily put on any combo of electric warming gloves, liners, full gloves, safety gear, etc, and still have it fit well
- Has enough room for dropping in warming packets or a couple edibles or whatever
- Makes you want to ride in cold weather
Cons:
- The velcro cinch strap is functional, but not the most user friendly (hint: grab the inner handle while securing it and it’ll be fine
- You will have to carefully consider order of operations in terms of putting on gear; more than likely this will go on last, or second to last with the other glove / mitten, so all your stuff needs to be squared away. This includes things like putting your phone in your pocket, flipping on a visbility light, and/or making sure all your zippers are set. Not really a con specific to the oven mitt, but putting on here.
- You will possibly look like a convict who escaped while being restrained and feel like all you can do with your hands is bat a bunny around
Nice to haves:
- Fleece lining for luxury feeling purposes
- Lots of room inside, but no actual pockets to stash things (some pogies have this)
Conclusion:
I haven’t had time to give it any kind of longevity test, but as of this point it’s definitely worth it.
I mentioned in the other post that I reached out to other manufacturers; we’ll see if any of the others ones get back to me.