Dogwood Designs Pogies

I’ve mentioned that I’m a fan of pogies to keep my hands warm for winter bike rides. I’ve also known about the pogies by Dogwood Designs ever since I spotted a pair on a past coldest day of the year ride. Santa was very kind and finally provided me with a pair. Given that it was -18°C this morning, I figured it was a good time to give them a try. This was also my first ride of the season with balaclava and goggles.

This is what the new pogies look like compared with one from rockbros.

This is what they look like on the bike.

Like most pogies, they are really intended for straight bars, in which case people have said that they extend a decent distance back towards the elbows. My winter bike has swept back bars and so the coverage is considerably less; just about 4 inches back of the end of the handlebar. Here is a picture of part of my handlebar, also showing the buttom placement for my hornit horn. Bells don’t work that well inside a pogie.

So how did they do this morning? I’ll preface my comments by saying that my commute is about 9 km, and that on a cold day like today it takes me about 40 minutes. I was wearing a pair of light gloves inside the pogies. For the first five or ten minutes my impression was that the pogies weren’t that much better than the rockbros. However, once my hands warmed up the air trapped inside the pogies, then they were just fine for the remainder of the ride.

Outstanding.

The real difference with these pogies, aside from the large volume, is that there is an adjustable shock cord that makes a good seal against your arm.

Compare this with the rockbros that does have a fabric barrier, but with loose elastic.

I do recognize that the dogwood designs item is much more expensive, given that it is sewn in Alaska, but if you are looking for the ultimate in pogies, I would recommend them. The rockbros item is available online and gives probably about 75% of the performance, and they are perfectly fine down to at least -10°C.

Just a couple more notes about the ride in. One thing was that I was trying out a new pair of goggles, but at this time I found that they suffer from severe enough fogging that I had to take them off after about 10 minutes.

I’ll have to do a comparison with the ski goggles that I’ve used in the past.

Otherwise, I was using my usual gear for cold but not super cold weather, including:

• a wool T shirt
• a wool shirt
• Proviz jacket (could be any windproof jacket)
• fleece lined pants
• thick wool socks in Blundstones on flat pedals.
• bike helmet earmuffs from this vendor