Zonder handschoenen voelt het koude stuur onaangenaam aan.

Because Dutch often allows a time, place, or condition phrase to come first for emphasis or flow.

• Zonder handschoenen = Without gloves
• It sets the situation before the main clause.

If you start a Dutch sentence with something other than the subject, the finite verb usually comes next. That is why you get:

• Zonder handschoenen voelt het koude stuur onaangenaam aan.

rather than a word-for-word English order like Zonder handschoenen het koude stuur voelt...

This is because of the normal Dutch V2 rule: in a main clause, the conjugated verb usually comes in the second position.

Here, the first position is taken by Zonder handschoenen, so the verb voelt must come right after it:

• Zonder handschoenen
  • voelt
    • het koude stuur
      • onaangenaam aan

If the sentence began with the subject, then you would say:

• Het koude stuur voelt zonder handschoenen onaangenaam aan.

That version is also grammatical, just with a different emphasis.

After zonder (without), Dutch often uses a bare plural noun when speaking generally.

So:

• zonder handschoenen = without gloves
• zonder schoenen = without shoes
• zonder problemen = without problems

This works much like English, where you also usually say without gloves, not without the gloves, unless you mean specific gloves.

If you wanted to refer to specific gloves, you could say:

• zonder de handschoenen

but that would mean without the gloves in a specific sense.

Because stuur is a het-word (a neuter noun), not a de-word.

So its definite article is:

• het stuur = the steering wheel

With an adjective:

• het koude stuur

You simply have to learn for each noun whether it takes de or het.

That is the normal adjective ending here.

In het koude stuur, the adjective comes before a noun with a definite article (het), so Dutch normally adds -e:

• het koude stuur
• de koude wind
• het mooie huis

Compare this with some indefinite singular het-words, where the adjective may stay without -e:

• een koud stuur

So:

• het koude stuur = definite
• een koud stuur = indefinite

This is the separable verb aanvoelen.

• aanvoelen can mean to feel, to feel like, or to seem by touch/sensation
• In a main clause, separable verbs often split:
  • voelt ... aan

So:

• Het stuur voelt koud aan.
• Het koude stuur voelt onaangenaam aan.

The last part aan moves to the end of the clause.

In the infinitive, it stays together:

• aanvoelen

Example:

• Dat kan onaangenaam aanvoelen.

No. In this sentence, aanvoelen means to feel to someone by touch/sensation.

So:

• Het koude stuur voelt onaangenaam aan
  means
• The cold steering wheel feels unpleasant

It describes how the steering wheel feels when touched, not that the steering wheel itself is sensing something.

This is similar to English:

• The blanket feels soft
• The water feels cold

Onaangenaam means unpleasant.

It is built from:

• aangenaam = pleasant
• on- = un-, not

So:

• onaangenaam = unpleasant

In this sentence, it describes the sensation of touching the steering wheel without gloves.

A near-synonym could be:

• onprettig

But onaangenaam is a very natural choice here.

Yes, often it is. In everyday Dutch, stuur can mean handlebars or steering wheel, depending on context.

In a car-related sentence like this, het stuur is naturally understood as the steering wheel.

There is also the more explicit word:

• stuurwiel = steering wheel

But stuur is very common and idiomatic.

Yes, that is grammatical.

Both are possible:

• Zonder handschoenen voelt het koude stuur onaangenaam aan.
• Het koude stuur voelt zonder handschoenen onaangenaam aan.

The difference is mostly emphasis:

• Starting with Zonder handschoenen highlights the condition.
• Starting with Het koude stuur puts the steering wheel more in focus.

Dutch word order is flexible in this way, as long as the verb-second rule is respected in main clauses.