Heated products

[F5 Dave]

Ok maybe I’m getting old but a couple of Brasses ago I was pretty dam cold when riding & thought, heck maybe I should try some of this heated clothing stuff. I rarely get cold just sport riding for a couple of hours, but long distance in winter can be a drag.

A friend offered me the loan of a heated vest & I trialled it. It was locally made in Nelson or somewhere many moons ago & it’s biggest weakness was the lack of decent connector or switch. I took it to the Brass but it wasn’t cold last year. I gave it to my girlfriend to convince her to come to the Kiwi . Foiled by bad connections & it never worked for her.

When I did have it running it heated up & felt quite nice, but it got too hot on my kidneys which is quite uncomfortable & not hot enough at the front. Decided anything home made is likely to be a pain in the butt & have crap connectors.

So I just received a Widder vest from the states. Initial test run on Sunday was encouraging. 4 gear changes away from my driveway I imagined I felt some heat (has the optional collar which is a must have). Sure enough at the end of the road it was getting warm. I kept riding with this weird sensation of being quite toasty & wondering if it was possible to be too hot. Sure enough I’d turned it off after 10 min as it turned into a nice day, the heat drained slowly. No hot spots, good connectors (their old ones were apparently their weakness so they changed them. Look forward to testing it in extreme conditions. The cord should run from a sidecover, which on the RF was easy as there was a handy vent. & I have mounted a 3 pos switch on the dash which will rout the power direct or through a suitable dropping resister if I decide I need a cooler setting.

Of course if gf comes to Brass I'll probably have it requisitioned anyway.

Part 2 Heated grips; I’ve had Daytona ones before & they are ok but you shouldn’t really leave them on the start position apparently & the on position is too cold so I decided to try some Hot Grips from the US. They are a bit wider & not super soft but comfortable enough not to bitch about. Again yet to try in cold weather but they seem to heat up fast so we’ll see.

As a sidenote some yank companies (like Hot Grips) will not deal outside US, but sometimes their distributors will. Widder were good to deal with but would only ship UPS which was a crazy $70US & blew my budget expectations.

[Blackbird]

I've got Daytona grips too, and the instructions state no more than a minute on rapid heat. From memory, it draws about 35 watts on rapid heat, and about half that for continuous operation. The design of your bike will influence whether the continuous rating is sufficient. The 'bird fairing deflects a fair bit of wind and all I need in all but the coldest weather is summer gloves and silk inners. If my hands were more exposed (perhaps on a semi-naked bike), they might be a bit marginal. I certainly wouldn't be without heated grips now though and wish I'd had them years ago

[LB]

One day I'll tell you all about the time my Daytona Hot Grips gave me bad blisters on my throttle hand........

[Yamahamaman]

So I just received a Widder vest from the states.

I have had the Widder 'Lectric Vest and Gloves since 2001 and amd totally pleased with the products.

Bought them from Wellington Motorcycles in Kent Terrace Wellington when they were the NZ distributors.

[pete376403]

[QUOTE=F5 Dave]Ok maybe I’m getting old but a couple of Brasses ago I was pretty dam cold when riding & thought, heck maybe I should try some of this heated clothing stuff. I rarely get cold just sport riding for a couple of hours, but long distance in winter can be a drag.
Decided anything home made is likely to be a pain in the butt & have crap connectors.QUOTE]
My home made vest is reliable, heats evenly and has been to about 5 or 6 Brasses. Doesn't have a heat controller, but is easy enough to reach the plug in the fairing. I made two of them using the heating wire from a Safasleep low voltage electric blanket. Would be nice to get the Widder stuff but what was the landed cost?

[Kiwibiker]

Hi I would not be with with them..
Also imported grips from the US Dual-Star $20.00US
These are heating element pads, u remove/roll back the orginal grips, stick on the heating elements, roll the grip back on, wire it up, has a hi and low switch and a way u go, couple that with a pair of handle bar mitts (for real cold stuff as grips only keep the inside of ya hands warm) and u can ride in the snow and ice for hours no problem.. Toasty
Took me about 2 hours to install, hardest part was removing the old grips as I wanted to keep them, easier method would be to just cut the old ones off and replace with your choise
ULR below if interested. http://www.dual-star.com/index2/Ride..._grip_kit1.htm

[moko]

Best heated grips you`ll get are BMW ones,3 settings and do a great job,not sure if they sell them aftermarket but they wont be cheap if they do.All of the Brit accessorie dealers will sell them to N.Z.,magazine tests reckon that none of them aren`t particularly hard-wearing.Honda and Yamaha now offer them as options on some of their bikes and again these are reckoned to be a lot better than from aftermarket manufacturers.I never really thought about them until I road a bike with them fitted,since then I`d say they`re worth every penny,especially here where sub-zero temperatures in winter aren`t un-usual.Those dirt-bike hand guards make a big difference in Winter as well,you lose a lot of bodyheat through cold hands and they keep the windblast at bay.

[Kiwibiker]

Looked at yamaha grips for the FJR but were over £100 not fitted so went for the Dual-Star option, they work very good for the price, and were easy to fit, also you get the option to choose your grip type

Cheers Steve

[F5 Dave]

Pete I’m glad your homemade vest works well, maybe I should rephrase that as anything I homemade made would be crappola. I did see the make your own articles on the web. Too many projects to branch out into a new one & we’re not even counting the renovations.

The Widder vest (mk2 with collat was $139US which thinking in my 70cents to the dollar mentality was pretty sharp. As the dollar began to fail I decided I better jump. What timing. But on top of that I needed a couple of hookup leads which were about $12-15 each. Glad I didn’t go for their temp controllers! Just a munty 3 pos dash switch from RIP-CO, which was about $7 & I’ll wire a power resistor in series on the 2nd position. Maybe.

Lynda. Um. . . wasn’t there an OFF switch??

Yeah on my old GS I was running dirty big Maier bush guards. They were great, your gloves stayed dry & out of the wind. They look hoady but I am going to try fit them to the RF but concerned they will clash with the fairing esp. as I have aftermarket handlebars. I can get it on the left but need to mod the R.

PS anyone with an RF the F1 bars are mucho improvement.

[F5 Dave]

Ok update time. We went away for the weekend which was quite chilli. The vest permitted levels of comfort never encountered before in these conditions. We both had pretty much the same leathers and I had a few layers of polys/Icebreaker, she wore the vest & rode pillion.

I was fine but she was quite toasty. This meant that I was far more comfortable when we stopped not having to hear the whinging about how cold it was. This also translated into more comfort while riding as the Guilt function was not activated.

I would whole heartedly recommend the Widder vests to anyone when riding with a pillion. Heck -I might even get the chance to wear it myself going to the Brass!

Also the Hot Grips (brand) have proved quiet grunty. Not aided by the fact I mounted the switch the other way around – I went to turn the grips down a level & they got hotter! Huh? Ooohh, I know what’s wrong. Still, fixed in 5min..

[What?]

Best heated grips you`ll get are BMW ones,3 settings and do a great job,not sure if they sell them aftermarket but they wont be cheap if they do..

They do and they aren't. They are bloody good though.

[Jackrat]

Ok this is an old thread but so's my back.
Does any body know of a heated vest that runs on batterys.
This time of the year I start to seize up because of the cold,in the morning I turn an electric blanket to high for a few minites and it loosens things up nicely.It would be nice to have a vest for the same reason.

[merv]

Ok this is an old thread but so's my back.
Does any body know of a heated vest that runs on batterys.
This time of the year I start to seize up because of the cold,in the morning I turn an electric blanket to high for a few minites and it loosens things up nicely.It would be nice to have a vest for the same reason.

Dunno but my first trip to USA back in 1980 I bought (for a bit of a laugh) a pair of "Electra Sox" for my brother. They ran on standard alkaline batteries and had little heating thingies at the end of the toes. They made all sorts of other clothes at the time, but I haven't looked for them since but I am sure if you searched the net there is probably something available.

[F5 Dave]

Ok probably the last update, but I can’t rave about this Widder Vest enough. During the ride to & from the Brass in Icy conditions & fog & snow etc it was Brilliant! Often I’d be riding thinking shall I bother to turn it on? I’m ok, then you might get the odd shiver with a collar leak, eventually you core gets colder.

Ahh heck lets turn it on. Wait 1 1/2 min. . . Awww beuwivull!! The heat seeps through & all is well with the world.

The Hot Grips brand of grips is now my preferred heated grip as well.

[pete376403]

Do you have any idea of the current consumption of the vest and grips? I was a bit concerned that when I had my vest and grips turned on, the voltmeter was hovering around the 12v mark. Usually it sits up aroud 13.5 - 14. (Old Suzukis traditionally have crap charging systems, having inherited the mantle of Joe Lucas). My pillion never turned her vest on, she said she was warm enough sitting behind me.
But I fully agree about the warm feelings - did you feel guilty at all, seeing others freezing their nads off? I didn't. :sly: