Enduring Cold Weather
That’s what 18º F looks like to me on a cold ride to work. My wife Kim enhanced the image to help better reflect how cold I felt.
My friend Paul bought me a pair of Gerbing Mens Classic Electric Gloves for Christmas. Nice surprise. He probably was tired of my whining about cold hands and second guessing electrical assistance – so he figured he would just shut me up. Yesterday morning was the first day cold enough to give them a fair test with the thermometer hovering at 18° F.
I’ve heard electric gloves are cumbersome to use. Depending on your tolerance for detail and process there may be some truth in that statement. If you like slip-on shoes and pullover jackets you probably won’t like dealing with electric gloves. I’m used to getting on and off the Vespa quickly and the departure ritual is second nature. Acquiring electric gloves means I have to develop another ritual.
Burned Hands
Before going into the nuts and bolts I should comment on the most important issue – warmth – and a few lessons I have learned. I read a post on the Modern Vespa site where it was suggested that a thermostatic control was necessary lest you burn your hands. I like to rest my hands on our hot water radiators or park them in front of the heating vents in the car, nice and hot, so I was quite excited at the prospect of burning heat at my fingertips.
UPDATE: MARCH 6, 2016 — Lesson One ONLY applies if you are riding in cold weather (below 35F, and you have no wind protection for the gloves. I found out recently that with hand grip mitts the gloves aren’t subject to the rapid cooling from the wind and I ended up with a small burn on my right hand. The gloves are hot. So I had to purchase a Gerbing Controller. With that in mind read on.
LESSON ONE: The gloves aren’t going to burn you. I don’t know where someone would get the idea that you could burn yourself with these gloves. At 32° F the elements are supposed to heat to 130° F. And the elements are insulated from directed contact with skin so no burning is going to take place. Using them at 18 ° at 50 MPH you can barely tell they are heating. At sub-freezing temperatures I don’t want a thermostat, I want full power.
LESSON TWO: They do keep your hands warm. Or at least not cold. Like I said I like feeling heat. My hands remained comfortable but not warm and performed much better than the expedition mittens I used last winter where my hands would go numb after 15 to 20 minutes of riding. I stop a lot to take pictures and have to take off the gloves. Holding a frozen camera my hands freeze fast. One of the nice features of the electric gloves is that they will slowly restore numb hands to relative comfort.
LESSON THREE: They are cumbersome to use. Running cables through the jacket every time I gear up, plugging in gloves and connectors, making sure the engine is running before plugging in or disconnecting before turning off in kindness towards the battery, it’s a lot of fussing around. And you need to do things in order. If you put the gloves on before you make those connections you have to start all over again. Since I stop and start a lot it means a lot of extra steps. I can deal with it in return for warm hands but I bet some would find it bothersome if not flat out irritating. I liken the process to putting an infant into a car seat. Once you are practiced it is a piece of cake. To the unwashed outsider it looks like hell.
LESSON FOUR: The gloves are nice. Well made, soft, luxurious on the hands, warm on their own, I really do like them. I fought the cold hand battle a long time, convincing myself it was a badge of riding honor to function in the cold by warming my hands on the headlight. I remained stubborn in the face of many suggestions to get electric gloves. Now I have them and I am ruined. What’s next? A windshield? Electric gloves? A motorcycle? I fear the bigger is better trap or which technology is a part.
At least my hands will be warm as I think about this stuff.
The Bonneville with Parabellum windshield is a fine way to go…he he.The Devil made me say it, honest.
Look at it this way: you have a number of readers who freak out about passive safety stuff- just convince yourself you are safer riding with hands that aren’t actually numb. Shouldn’t be a hard sell, and you still look butch to me. Better now, you Luddite?
Now you know what electric gloves can do for you…go for a windshield I did after three plus years of riding without one. I would never go back without a windshield. For the fingers – now you can operate your camera without close to frost bitten fingers.
Steve,
Gerbing makes an electric jacket liner that’s pre-wired for the gloves. Makes things a bit simpler. 😉 Go for it, you know you want to. Do it. Heheheheh.
Somewhere I have a picture of the fair and lovely Debbie at a rest stop all adorned with wires from her beloved electric gloves, electric jacket liner, and rider/passenger intercom. I told her “You look like you got in a fight with a 50ft extension cord and lost.”
Anyway, on a short ride I’m not sure the electric stuff is worth it but out for an all day ride it makes the difference between a pleasant ride and an endurance run.
Doug
For only a couple of days, we were crying about the cold weather here in SoFla. It did not last long and it was only in the 40’s, so cannot imagine 18 degrees on a scooter. Happy to hear about your gloves, never did buy that line “cold hands, warm heart”.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for this entertaining and informative post! I feel damned lucky that in Australia, the daytime weather rarely dips below 20 degrees celcius most of the year… so no electric gloves needed.
Still – I wouldn’t feel bad about using them over your way… I think at freezing temperatures they’re a good safety measure, given that numb hands don’t make for brilliant response times before potential accidents!
cheers,
M
Funny!… as I have been dealing with electric for years… including the socks, pants liner… and always the jacket liner, that is a must as, yes, it is pre-wired for the gloves. One trick is once the gloves (with the jacket) are hooked up, when you stop to get gas or ^%$# you can leave them attached and they can just dangle without having to go trough the motion of unhooking them everytime. BEWARE if your hands are sightly wet… now we are talking about a real pain to put them on… even take them off as the inner liner of the glove is a separate layer that will come out and then it is good luck to push that liner back in for the fingers to fit in… Sorry about the details… but as you… one has to go through the proper motion!!! I second the windhsield… get a removable one… and the jacket liner. All will make you ride longer… more often… so you can write longer and more often and we can be entertained more often and longer too!!!
OK… no more coffee this morning…
Oh! one more thing… if you get the jacket, also get a “BUFF”. Put it around your neck and insert part of it inside the heted collar, specially in the front, without it, after a while that zipper will be so annoying that you will have a permanent zipper imprint on your neck… and you are just too young for bypasses yet…
Be well… Ara & Spirit
conchscooter: Yeah, I do have Luddite of neo-Luddite leanings but only in certain areas and only as it relates to keeping my life simple. If I were a complete Luddite I would be riding a bicycle, walking, or riding a horse…
That said, I will have to look into a windshield maybe…
pvino: Todo list: Look at windshields. Check. More and more seeming like a decent idea.
doug K: I’m pretty warm on the rest of me though I wear a lot of stuff. The electric liner would probably cut down on the weight. I would need to look closely at how much available power the Vespa’s stator puts out.
I think you are right about short trips. No need to use the electrics. I can keep them stowed under the seat if I need them otherwise the regular gloves are OK for my commute or errands.
heinz & frenchie: In Florida 40 degrees is arctic! The good thing it never lasts long so you can wait it out.
Michael: The gloves definitely make it easier to manipulate the brake levels over the mittens. I never felt that I was unsafe even with hands quite cold. I didn’t notice any difficulty in response but then again I never really tested it.
Either way it is a big improvement. Mostly…
Ara: I’ve already learned the dangling gloves trick. I feel like a little kid wandering around like that. But then I’m pretty much a big kid anyway.
I have another pair of gloves with similar linings and they are a bear to put on when my hands are wet so I figured these would be the same. These gloves aren’t waterproof either so I have been looking at the Aerostich rain covers. You ever use them?
I’ll look at the liners and stuff but I think I won’t need it. Compared to you and Spirit and the riding you do I am not even an enthusiastic amateur. You guys are just amazing. Keep safe out there on your adventures!
A friend has loaned me her Gerbing electric gloves for the winter. I love them. So far, I’ve used them once, this past weekend during the Polar Bear Ride and at 14 degrees above zero, they worked just fine!!
I’ll be saving up for heated grips or heated gloves for next winter.
Steve, be sure to put a charger on your Vespa battery every so often. Otherwise, you could drain your battery and not know it … until that cold day when it won’t start.
Very informative article. I have been wanting electric gloves. Riding in our mountains in the spring and fall and get pretty chilly. Maybe in a few more years.
Happy New Year, Betty 🙂
Oooh, I’m tempted – only problem is there’s no where to plug in anything on my LX50!
Great post – I found the information and your reactions good to read – and warming, too!
Nicely done review. Ironically, I won a Gerbing electric jacket liner as a door prize at our instructor banquet in November. So far I haven’t hooked it up. Nor have I used the Widder vest.
Maybe my ability to eschew electrics has to do with the large front fairing on Sophie.
Repeat to yourself– More wires or a motorcycle?
I really admire Gerbing company. It really makes lots of stuff and not just stuff but good and amazing like those heated jackets. Thanks for sharing it with us.
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