Heated Gear

Heated gear is something I have avoided in the past, even though I ride year around. Smaller bikes I enjoy most don't have the alternator output to power it, and the battery powered options aren't suitable for my ride length and frequency. Cycle Gear had a sale on heated gear this winter, and I now ride the Kawasaki Voyager 1700 most frequently in cold weather, which has plenty of electrical output to spare, so I decided to try a vest.

Keeping my core warm with a vest certainly extends the amount of time I can ride below 40F; typically on the one and a half hour ride to work I would need to stop once when in the 30-40F range, twice in the 20-30F range, and sometimes four times below that to walk around and warm up appendages. With the vest I've been able to ride straight to work without stopping. However, although I didn't have too much trouble with my hands before, now with the vest and the longer range I am riding without stopping, my hands were the next target for heat.

The Cycle Gear vest has matching glove liners I then purchased; this solved the cold hands, however these do have an annoyance. I expected them to be controlled via the same controller the vest has, however they seem to go full heat whenever plugged in, ignore the controller, and don't shut off until unplugging. This works fine below 30F but tends to roast my hands after a while above that, with the only way to shut them off being to unplug. Fortunately the connector is rather easy to just reach down and remove; although I do have to stop to plug back in.

Now as I'm able to do longer rides without stops, my legs and feet are starting to get a bit chilly . . .