Well I finally bought myself some Gerbings. I bought the heated gloves and jacket liner. After that Arizona camping trip, I realized how tough it is to keep warm.Last month I wrote "Why Fat Bikers Are Better", explaining how I lost 90 pounds of fat, and along with it my ability to protect myself from cold weather.
I've always figured that riding a motorcycle means feeling the wind, and therefore being cold. But then again back in those days, I was never truly cold.
It was the morning of Day 4 on the camping trip, we broke camp early in the morning. Temperature when we left was about 40 degrees. But we climbed elevation to Hannagan Meadow, the air temperature gauge on my Honda ST read 32 degrees. I figure with a 60mph wind chill, my hands were experiencing 15 degree temps.
My hands were so cold they felt like they were on fire. I was actually wearing two pairs of gloves, a pair of summer gloves underneath, and a pair of winter gloves over those. And yet they were still so painful, I worried I was doing irreparable damage to them. I pulled over to stop.
A guy behind me pulled over with me, and he happened to have a second pair of winter gloves. I tried those on. They seemed to be a little better, but after several miles, the pain continued.
The Gerbing gear is pretty easy to set up. You just wire it to your battery, and you plug it in. They explain it on their website if you're interested. Just make sure you buy the temperature controller, or else you're getting heat full blast.
But expect to pay a lot of money. I threw down almost $500.00 for the gloves, the jacket liner, the temperature controller, and the case that holds the temperature controller to your belt, plus the sales tax.
I had actually planned to buy heated grips for my ST. But a friend of mine made the point that with heated gear instead, you can unwire it from the battery and reinstall it on another bike should I ever plan to get another bike. Whereas with heated grips, they're permanently attached to that bike.
Of course, now that we're well into Spring, I doubt I'll be using this stuff until next Winter. But Hell, I'll need it eventually.
Sounds like a good investment ... eventually I will have to get some heated gloves, as I have yet to find any non-electric solution to keep my fingers from going numb in even 40-degree temps. And good choice going with heated gloves instead of heated grips - I've heard heated grips have a high failure rate, plus are much harder to install.
ReplyDeleteI too have worried about causing permanent damage to my hands when riding in the cold. I have sometimes arrived at destinations, with bitterly cold hands that are painful, numb and tingling. The effects can sometimes be felt for hours afterwards and this cannot be good for what must be a very susceptible part of your body. It is silly to risk this by riding when it is too cold without adequate protection.
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good point about heated grips stay with the bike when you sell it. I have these on my Road King and while I cannot imagine selling that bike, I would of course lose the grips if I did. I would have to weigh that against me leaving the gloves behind somewhere, or more likely, dropping one out of my helmet as I carried it.
I hope they work out for you, even if you might need to wait a while before using them.
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ReplyDeleteC'mon Steve, go on a cold midnight ride and let us know how they work :-). I too have been considering a similar purchase. I'm leaning more towards the heated glove liners (usable with numerous protective gloves and less likely to be damaged in a fall). What was your deciding factor for getting the belt-mount over the bike-mount controller? Do you anticipate any problems accessing the belt-mount controller with a riding jacket on?
ReplyDeleteI'm leaning towards getting the bike-mount controller. It's cumbersome to adjust the belt controls when I'm wearing those Gerbing gloves. But so far, the gloves and jacket liner work really well. The jacket liner works better because it's inside my jacket. The gloves are still warm, but the cold wind tends to suck out some of that heat.
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