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The summer riding season is over.
You are on a late night ride home or leaving the
house on a frosty morning, and you find yourself
outright cold on that bike. Would it not be nice to take
the 'nip' off, flip a switch and get instant warmth?
Enter Heated Clothing and Heated Grips.
Not only do these accessories provide comfort, they
provide added safety as well (one is arguably not at
peak performance when frozen stiff).
But what is it all about?
What are the differences between all the heated garments,
grips, hookups, controllers and accessories?
How do I pick the right heat solution?
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Heated Gloves |
Heated Grips |
Heated Clothing |
Controllers |
Companies and Brand
names There are several brands out there
specializing in Heated Clothing and Grips.
Some are fairly new and some have been around for
decades.
Widder Enterprises or better known as
Widder
Lectric-Heat is one of those pioneering, family owned,
businesses. They have been producing heated clothing
since 1971 and now offer one of the
finest ranges of heated vests, chaps, arm-chaps, gloves
and controls. Really super and consistent quality.
Warm & Safe is another company worth looking at.
Maker of the famous
Heat-Troller electronic
controller and an avid rider (think serious world
motorcycle traveler), company founder Mike Coan
ventured into heated apparel after one of the other,
lesser quality
heated clothing companies, pulled a knock-off stunt
on him.
Mike Coan reminds me in part of Henry Ford's story. He
keeps tweaking the product, drives everyone nuts,
but...in the end it's all about quality and in that he
definitely succeeds.
Hot Grips is another quality company we focus on.
Jim Hollander has pioneered heated grips since
1976. He basically invented heated grips and
continuously refined the product. Today Hot Grips
brand is the d-facto standard and there is something to
say about a company that keep's production in the US.
Then lastly there is Oxford with it's line of
heated grips. Although they do not invent things, they
do stand out at offering added features. Oxford
always excels
at bringing a complete package (plug and play) for a
great price.
Products
Your hands will generally be the first area where
temperature control is needed.
 Solutions
here are Heated grips and Heated gloves. Both have their
own advantages.
Heated grips are (except for Oxford's wrap around)
permanently mounted. Flip the switch and there you have
it. A nice and comfortable heat source.
Another advantage is that you can ride with summer or
mid-season gloves much longer.
Disadvantage of Heated Grips is in that they leave the outside
of your hands cold which is of course the area most
affected by wind-chill.
 Heated
gloves do have the advantage of keeping your hands warm
where you need it most. And you can easily switch bikes
without having to re-wire a lot. Then there are all
those people who do not want to replace their nice after
market grips.
Added bulk and connecting wires are sometimes perceived
as a disadvantage although the gloves can be used all
the same without connecting.
 In
addition you can opt for full heated clothing.
Here we see heated vests, with or without heated collar
(sport riders tend not to want the collar), heated
chaps, arm-chaps or full heated liners. One thing always
to remember is heat-transfer. As opposed to
regular winter clothing, you do not want the extra air
layer between the garment and your body. A snug fit is
necessary for optimum heat transfer from the garment to
your body.
Widder offers a system solution where the heated
vest becomes the center piece.
The vest is connected to the bike's battery either via a
direct fused connector or through a BMW/Hella accessory
port.
All other heated elements (chaps, arm-chaps, gloves)
connect straight to the vest and all are controlled by
either a on/off switch or electronic thermostat
controller. Widder uses their own proprietary 2 prong
plug. Adapters to Coax and SAE are available.
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Widder Chaps |
Widder Arm-Chaps |
Widder
battery Connector |
Widder Plug |
Warm & Safe developed a full heated liner and
several heated glove models. New this winter season are
separate Rider and Passenger heated gloves. It makes
sense. All heated gloves connect direct to
the hidden liner-sleeve connectors. In addition they also have
all liners and gloves available in men's and women's sizes. It's
not just a smaller size, it's a complete different
design to fit women better.
One of Mike Coan's pet
projects has been the improvement of the coax plug and
of course, Warm & Safe is best known for it's famous
Heat-Troller electronic controller.
Available are Portable, Dash or Velcro mounted and
single or double units (control two section of heated
clothing separate)
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Warm & Safe liner (yes,
that's Mike) |
Heat Troller |
Connectors and Hookups There
are some 'portable battery' heated clothing solutions out there but here
we focus mainly on products powered by your bike's
battery. For consistent always-on solutions, this is the
way to go. All heated products discussed
here connect to
the bike's battery in some form. This can be done with a
direct battery connector, leaving a connection plug
usually on the left side of the bike or one can plug-in
straight into the bike's accessory power port if one is
available. Sometimes you would want to leave this port
open for other accessories. There are
basically 3 types of connecting plugs used. Widder has
their own 2 prong Widder plug while Warm &
Safe uses the sleeker coax type plug. Some
manufactures use SAE (one male & one female prong
side to side) but none of our brands do.
Adapters from one style to the other are available.
Let's look at a classic Widder hookup.
Battery wire is installed on the power source with the
female connector plug available on the left side of the
bike. The vest is connected to this plug
by either a on/off switch cord or thermostat cord. If
all you do is say a 25 mile commute to work then the
on/off cord is certainly sufficient. For longer trips we
would recommend the electronic controller.
From here you can opt for several
accessories, to be hooked into the vest, and all
controlled by the same switch or thermostat. Arm-Chaps
and Chaps are connected to the vest while Gloves either
connect to the Arm-Chaps, direct to the vest or even
direct to the battery connector with a separate switch
or thermostat cord.
Warm & Safe's products evolve around their
Heat-Troller which comes in 3 base versions. Control knob in a panel
i.e. 'Mounted' (drill a hole), control knob mounted in a small box
i.e. 'Semi Mounted' (velcroed to the bike) or
control knob on the unit itself i.e. 'Portable' and which is kept in your
pocket. Heated grips are wired directly
into the bike. They come in two handlebar diameters. 7/8" for all sport and tour bikes
and 1" for most Cruiser bikes. Oxford's Heaterz grips are all supplied with a variable
controller. Oxford HotHands are wrap-around grips
and come with a on/off switch. Hot Grips brand
are supplied standard with a high/lo/off switch but we
also have the specific Heat-Troller for grips
available.
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