With summer turning to autumn, the nights are drawing in and temperature’s beginning to drop, and it’s that time where we need to have a serious chat about dressing on the bike for colder weather.

This sad fact popped into my head on a recent ride where I was forced to go full Gabba, knee warmers and arm warmers and I realised that pretty soon this will be, by and large, my day to day kit as all thoughts of a lightweight jersey and shorts start to seem like an impossible dream.

Winter’s easy, because in winter it’s just plain cold and you have to dress accordingly, but autumn can be difficult because it’s not exactly cold, but certainly not hot. What that means is that there are a few items of clothing that you need to have in your wardrobe for autumn – most of which work in early spring, too – that help to bridge that tricky season gap and find that ‘Goldilocks’ zone where you’re not too hot and not too cold.

With that in mind, here’s a guide to the most important pieces of autumn clothing that’ll help you to make it to the start of November, when it’s officially okay to break out the bib tights…