Keeping your hands warm in cold riding weather.

[Zombie Master]

Hippo hands are the only way to go. with heated grips, the heat is on the inside, not the outside where the wind is cooling them. With hippo hands one can ride with the same gloves that one would need without the windchill factor. At freezing, light summer gloves are enough for standing around, or riding a bike at 65 mph.

Don't mess around with electricity, or thick gloves and mittens. Hippo hands solve the problem completely.

4 pages and you finally joined in. Thanks, Duane!

But if you have heated grips, they are always there on every ride. Once you have a set you'll never want a bike without them.

[SteveD]

I've heard people say that, but despite the occasional cold ride here in temperate Victoria, I'm still reticent to install something electrical into the loom. Where and how would it connect into the loom/
Maybe next year I'll try the simple wrap around setup and see if I'd ever go back to no heat?

[Duane Ausherman]

Steve, you have just hit on why I would only use them if my Hippo Hands weren't enough. I come from an electrical background and so I don't hesitate to use an electrical solution. However, in my BMW shop experience, I found that electrical accessories were the cause of a lot of problems. That was usually due to poor instalation, or failure to consider the total load on the system.

Bottom line, electrical aftermarket things tended to be a source of trouble. For me they were a source of income. For the customer they were a source of failure and "outgo" of money.

It is your time, money and reliability to consider.

[Major Softie]

Yeah, on the one hand, that suspicion of electrical accessories is a relic of the quality of the items when Duane was running his shop, and is not really relevant to today. On the other hand, an Airhead's electrical system is also a relic of the times...

[Zombie Master]

I've heard people say that, but despite the occasional cold ride here in temperate Victoria, I'm still reticent to install something electrical into the loom. Where and how would it connect into the loom/
Maybe next year I'll try the simple wrap around setup and see if I'd ever go back to no heat?

You don't attach them to the loom. You install a $8.00 relay to the battery. The grips are isolated from the loom altogether. The cheap under grip type work well.

[SteveD]

I've heard people say that, but despite the occasional cold ride here in temperate Victoria, I'm still reticent to install something electrical into the loom. Where and how would it connect into the loom/
Maybe next year I'll try the simple wrap around setup and see if I'd ever go back to no heat?

You don't attach them to the loom. You install a $8.00 relay to the battery. The grips are isolated from the loom altogether. The cheap under grip type work well.

Thanks. They're the ones I may consider next autumn...

[SteveD]

These look ok...except maybe for mirrors on the bars...

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Handschuhe-Lenke ... 1c15bc2a88

[Garnet]

Neuer, unbenutzter und nicht getragener Artikel in der Originalverpackung (wie z. B. Original­karton/‑tasche) und/oder mit noch am Artikel befestigten Originaletikett.

[SteveD]

Klingt wie das Zeug!

[Sunbeem]

The local method of heating grips,or gloves, is to use the element wire from an old electric blanket -- I've never needed to go to that extreme, but it seems a simple way of avoiding unnecessary expense.
I think it would be vital to insulate the bars, so they didn't absorb any heat, then build up a nice leather grip over the wire.
There would be some electrical work to do, but I can't see the point of paying some shopkeeper's mortgage, and supporting a factory somewhere, when I could do it all myself, from largely re-cycled components.
That's still the way most motorcyclists, (as opposed to bikers), do it round here.
It's doesn't eat your beer money, it's green, and it's what Sunday afternoons are for.

Sunbeem.