Budget winter gear

After umming and aahing for ages I’ve finally gotten round to opening my wallet (accompanied by a choir of angels and a flock of pigs) to buy some winter cycling gear. I was looking towards the budget/miserly side of things, but I still wanted items that wouldn’t leave me caught short in the rain or cold this season. I settled on an Endura Laser Compact (£36.00), an Altura Inter base layer (£16.59) and a Cat Eye EL300 BS/ AV100BS light set (£34.19).

I’ve gotta be honest, at that money I wasn’t expecting great shakes, particularly from the jacket. I spend large chunks of my time looking at highly priced/specced jackets that on paper wipe the floor with the Laser, but in practice it's already proving to be a great asset. My commute is over twenty miles each day on fairly busy, badly lit roads, so visibility was really important to me. I’m simply too young and handsome to get hit by a car at this stage of my life so the 360 degree of visibility the Laser offered was much appreciated (as was the wide berth cars have been giving me). It's got strips up and down each arm and a healthy reflective logo on the back, that I've been informed by friends looks 'mad' when lit up by headlights, which bodes well for other road users seeing me clearly.
Visibility obviously comes from the Cateye light set too. Whilst I wouldn’t take it down a trail at night, it lets me see more than enough of the road ahead and does a great job of making sure other road users can see me and try to anticipate where my bike will wobble next.
Breathability is something that all cyclists are looking for from their gear. I only recently found out from a colleague (having never worn a really high tech jacket out on a ride... sniff), that no jacket on this earth can match the human body for breathability. The human body will always beat the jacket, no matter how much it's nano-technology costs. But for an entry, compact item, I was honestly really impressed with how long the Laser held out against my sweaty onslaught. It's keeping me comfortable for my forty minutes commute, my occasional jog and, crucially, having bought the orange version, I don't feel like an absolute day-glo arse when I walk in my local shop. So thumbs up.
Out of the two clothing items though, the Inter base layer is the one I already couldn't do without. The skin tight man made material genuinely feels like it's offering muscular support as well as keeping my temperature stable and me very snug. It's probably a bit too skin tight to be worn casually in my opinion, you'd definitely get a few strange looks if you walked in the pub with your moobs/pecs hanging out, but it's the best bike related item I've bought for a while and comes highly recommended to anyone looking for a highly functional entry level base layer.