So last fall I dropped a big chunk of change to get these for my 'Liner and left them on all winter and during that time I've ridden the bike to work almost every day in temps as low as mid 20s. When I left the house this morning it was just under 40 and I was wearing the same gear I normally wear but it was the coldest commute I've had all year. Since it has been so warm lately I removed the Dawgs and Digits and the result is that my hands, feet and lower legs were cold as hell. I would estimate that the wind protection from these two items is good for about 15 degrees on the comfort scale.
There were times over the winter when my hands would be feeling cold and I wondered whether or not the hand deflectors had been worth the money but this morning's commute proves to me that they were money well spent.
In the interest of making this more of a review, I'll add a couple of comments:
- With the Dawgs over the crash bars the feet are out of the wind but the wind coming over the top leaves the knees cold. I bought a set of Buck's Lowers to help with this but that was late in the year so I'll install those next fall when I put the rest of this back on.
- My one complaint with the hand protectors is the screw that is used on the hinge point. It is a based 'blued' Allen screw and within a month of installation it was completely orange with rust. That screw really needs to be stainless.
A pic from when I first installed them:
