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first ride with heated gloves

3K views 14 replies 7 participants last post by  Kerry 
#1 ·
I bought a pair of battery powered gloves, these. They arrived last night and spent several hours on the charger, so I could give them a test spin today. The temp was 39 degrees F when I left the house, with rather high winds.

I was out for a little over an hour, about 60 miles, riding freeway speeds (in excess of 70mph) and the slow stuff on side streets. My hands never got cold, for the first time this year. In fact, there were a couple of times where the gloves had to be turned down because they were too hot, even though I never had them on the highest setting.

If you look over the info on that site, they specifically state that these gloves are not designed for use on a motorcycle. They don't say why, at least that I could find. They want you to buy their gloves that hardwire into the bike, I guess. I didn't know that when I bought the gloves, because I got them from another vendor, for the same price, that said nothing about use on a bike.

One caveat, I didn't use these gloves "naked". I have a set of Hippo Hands installed, see here The HH do not allow me to use normal gloves, with 1 or 2 liners and even chemical hand warmers inside or heated grip wraps, and stay warm in these types of temps. They did allow me, I believe, to use the heated gloves on the lower settings.

In short, my initial tests are very positive. I'm looking forward to being able to ride in relatively cold weather, comfortably. I would have been able to stay out for much longer today, but the high winds made it too unpleasant. I also bought some battery powered socks that I'll try later on.
 
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#3 ·
cold

I'll vouch for that one, it gets worse than cold! Especially this time of year till your body adjust to the colder weather it seems colder than it actually is. I think I'm ready to move south, but too young. I like the idea of the heated gloves and socks as these are the two hardest part of my body to keep warm. What kind of a deal did you get on these?
 
#5 ·
I like the idea of the heated gloves and socks as these are the two hardest part of my body to keep warm. What kind of a deal did you get on these?
No deal. I paid full MSRP. I didn't do much research. A few days ago, I came home after riding and my hands/feet were feeling frozen. My wife handed me a catalog, opened to the page with these gloves in them. I looked them up on the web and bought the gloves and some other things, before I'd fully restored the feeling to my fingers. Impulse buying, I think is what that is called. :eek:

Here is the link to the page that did me in. It has the socks at the bottom. I read the description and their guarantee and pulled the trigger....

So, I have no idea if you can get them elsewhere for a better price. But, yesterday, I didn't care. I was riding with warm hands for the first time since the temps dropped below 50. :D

I will say though, that even after reading the Gerbing site and seeing the gloves designed to work on bikes, I'm fairly certain that I won't return these and buy the hard-wired gloves that Gerbing sells. These are very nice to use, no worries about the wires tied to the bike that the other gloves have. I bought an extra set of batteries, which should give me more than enough power for the amount of riding I'll do in the cold. I rode for about an hour and a half with the gloves and the batteries showed half full when I was done. Of course, folks that would be riding for more than 3 or 4 hours would probably want the 12 volt bike gloves on the Gerbing site.
 
#6 ·
Funny seeing those Hippo Hands, In the land of OZ where i used to live we called em handlebar muffs and many years ago i had a set made out of canvas with blanket liners, they sure do work in the rain or cold.
 
#7 ·
Yes, I'm quite pleased with them. They look like crap on the bike, but they break the wind like nothing else I've tried. As a test, I rode with them for a while, then removed them. The difference was felt almost immediately. I'd have had to stop, within a very short period of time, even with chemical warmers in my gloves. So, I put them back on to stay now, until spring. :p

The chaps on the engine guard do a similar job for my feet. I can certainly tell the difference having a foot on the floorboard vs putting it out in the wind on the cruising pegs on the engine guard. Of course, the chaps aren't nearly as effective as the Hippo Hands, but I've not found anything better for that.
 
#9 ·
I've not put my Hippo Hands on yet, gonna see how low I can go with just the electric gloves BUT the first time my hands are smarting when I get off the bike ON THEY GO!!!
:D:D:D:D:D

They do look pretty dorky, but I can live with that. I don't like the restricted motion that I have with them, especially when I have to take a hand out of one. Trying to get it back in quickly just won't happen. In an emergency, I can operate both the clutch and the brake levers from the outside, but that's pretty scary. :(

Been down to 30 so far in the breeze and my hands are just short of sweaty.
Yeah, that's cool. I probably won't ride in weather much colder than 32 F. I've toyed with the notion of removing the Hippo Hands when my 2nd set of batteries arrives. I don't know how long the batteries would last in these gloves, without the protection of the Hippo Hands and being at full power. So, I'm not gonna test it until I have the backups. :)
 
#11 ·
huh... That's pretty cold. I don't think that I'd enjoy riding in that. I only ride for pleasure, so I don't think I'll be riding in anything below freezing unless I'm really desperate to put a few miles of peace of mind in my pocket. :D

My set of spare batteries arrived today and are now charging. So, I'll be looking for a dry day to try them out, sans the Hippo. :p

Do you have the gloves that are hard-wired to the bike? If so, how do you manage the wires?

thanks
 
#12 ·
I've got the hot hands heated grips which I just installed for this season. Been out in 28 degrees F. and so far, with a good pair of gloves from Cabella's, I have been very satisfied. I was told that my palms would get hot and the backs of my fingers would freeze, but once the gloves warm up, I don't have much of a problem. I'll let you know when it gets seriously cold.....(20 degrees or colder) as I ride all winter long, as long as the snow has been removed from the streets and there is not a lot of salt to ride through....
 
#14 ·
I have a $45 set of grip heaters by Aerostich, from this link As an aside, anyone that decides to buy these, I'd advise getting the long version and be prepared to add a couple feet of wire. They will "fit" on my grips as they come, but the wire is stretched tight directly between them. I added extra wire to run it along the length of the handlebars. I'd also advise buying and installing a rheostat of some kind to control the heat, at the same time. You'll have to look up the ohm and watts you'd need though. I haven't done that yet.

They only have an on/off setting, which is why they're so cheap, but they do work. They get hot enough to be very uncomfortable. My experience with them so far, matches what you've been told about having hot palms and cold on the backs of the hand/fingers. If you're getting heat transfer to the back of your gloves, that is pretty cool. None of my gloves do that.
 
#13 ·
Kerry, when I went dark one of the resources I was reading was a guy in Alaska with his Goldwing. He has a studded snow on the back, studs on the front and once the plows go by he is on the road 365. Alright, waiting on the plows that's probably closer to 200 I don't know, but he never stops riding. Another way to tell that is he only stops riding during the one snow storm they get each year. Unfortunately that starts in October and stops in June. On the wing he's got heated everything AND electric gear. I didn't ask what he does for a block heater. So cold that if you stopped a vehicle and didn't plug it in you probably wouldn't get it started again. Maybe he rides from garage to garage? I was told by a former student friend that they would pull up to a parking meter, get out, plug in the car at the provided socket and drop the quarters in the meter. That was a while ago but I suppose it's probably still like that in the cities. Only speculation and hearsay but you know they're a different breed up there.

This morning was a neat trip in. About half way there climbing up a hill I got into warm air. Reminded me of my Iron Butt ride when I would hit patches of warm air amongst the ever cooling air in the valleys of Colorado. Here I was going up the hill and the air got warm. I thought maybe it was engine heat and I had just got out of the breeze. It cooled down a bit at the top of the Hill but about a mile later it was warm again and it was the front. Leaving home was 42 degrees on my thermometer. At work it was 60.

Not so on the way home, 40 degrees after the front went through.
 
#15 ·
Update;

I was out riding several hours yesterday, running errands, in temps ranging from about 42 to 36 F. I removed the Hippo Hands from the bike before I left. The first set of batteries lasted over 3 hours, running the gloves mostly at the highest setting. My hands stayed warm until the batteries got low and the temps had dropped to about 36. I put in fresh batteries and put on a set of glove liners and was once again able to ride with warm hands/fingers. By then, though, my feet were beginning to feel like blocks of ice, so I gave it up for the day.

I don't know if these gloves put out as much heat as the hard-wired 12v gloves that they sell. I'd tend to think not. At this point, I'm not sure that I'd need more. At some point, the temps get to where lots of things are annoying and riding is no longer enjoyable for me. I'm thinking that my limits are around 40 F. Much lower than that and it's just not fun. The visor on my FF helmet fogs up or my face freezes and nose runs cause I have the visor open to clear the fog....... phooey.... I need to move south, I guess. :(

Mrclean, you forgot to mention whether or not you have hard-wired gloves.

thanks
 
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