Winter testing of cycling gear, however you square it, is going to involve getting wet at some point. No matter how good the best cycling overshoes are, even in combination with a set of mudguards, your shoes are going to get wet eventually. As long as I’m warm, I can put up with more or less anything, but there’s one thing I really cannot stand, and that is slipping my feet into wet shoes at the start of a ride; it’s one of life’s truly great unpleasant sensations.
Newspaper goes some way to alleviating the issue if one is well stocked with stacks of newspaper, but in the digital age, this is more unlikely than not, and I do hate having to buy a copy of the Guardian/Telegraph [delete as fits your political persuasion] just to dry my shoes off.
My solution to dry shoes day after day? A set of cheap Amazon shoe dryers, which by a happy coincidence are currently 15% off for the Big Deal Days event, though even at full price I think you should still get some, especially as I paid full price for them myself.
Simply plug ‘em in, slip one into each soggy shoe (take out the insoles first for best results) and set the timer for how long you want them to stay on, from 3, 6, or 9 hours. Soon enough, jets of warm air will be filling your stinky footwear, and they’ll be dry in no time at all.
I cannot stress enough how much these have improved my winter riding. They live by the shoe rack, so as soon as I come in, once I’ve rinsed off the bike, the shoes go straight on to dry. This means they not only get drier more quickly, but they also stink less as they haven’t stayed damp for three days near a radiator that only comes on for a few hours.
Don’t just take my word for it; Jack Luke, Deputy Editor at BikeRadar and good friend/professional enemy of mine, also swears by his identical set, and even put them top of his gear of the year for 2025. To double down still further, I even bought my mother a set for Christmas last year, and she has been delighted with them ever since.
If you buy nothing else this Amazon Big Deal Day, let it be this and thank me later.
