19F this morning for my ride into State College, Pennsylvania to meet my friends Paul and Gordon at Saint’s Cafe to talk about photography, life and whatever else emerges. Sunshine helps mitigate the cold — probably more a state of mind than any actual change in temperature.
I wasn’t excited to ride this morning when I crawled out of bed but kept moving in that direction until I finally plugged in my Gerbing electric gloves, flicked the power switch, and headed down the road. Electric gloves are nice!
Electric gloves are nice until they quit working. About four miles into my ride I noticed the warm, toasty feeling depart and a cold, numb feeling creep into my fingertips. Looking at the power switch I saw the light was out — no more juice. I already knew the problem — corrosion on the connector. I’d been tinkering with it for awhile rather than just swap it out with a new one and led me to this conclusion: “Holy shit it’s cold”.
When the temperature drops below 30F I need those electric gloves if I don’t want to engage in periodic huddles around the headlight or muffler. Paul gave me a new lead and connector and tomorrow I’ll install and be back in business.
Hot tea and a bagel did much to soothe aching cold hands but my riding spirit was already in good shape. There’s just something about riding in the cold that yields unexpected dividends for me…
I’ve put on these neoprene covers on my grips and they do a great job blocking the wind so the back of your hand and fingers stay a little warmer. Plus, if you put on grip heaters as a “belt and suspenders” backup.
19F is cold as hell!! That’s -7ºC! My rides, at 0ºC are a pain in the… hands! I’ve considered upgrading my Stella grips for heated ones but they are a bit pricey for my budget.
You, my friend, are a true artist, riding at that temperatures and being able to take such beautiful photos with frozen fingers 🙂
Steve:
You’re making me cold just reading your words. I used to have heated gloves and YES, they work much better than heated grips BUT I kept forgetting to unplug when dismounting.
We generally can’t ride in the mornings here due to icy/frosty roads,
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
Steve, yep I’ve had my heated grips lose power during rides, not a lot of fun at that point. And yeah, its nice to be able to reach down to one of the boxer engine’s jugs and hold one’s gloved hand on them for a bit to forestall frostbite.
Will a spare connector now become part of your “spares” list?
Steve, I could kick myself for not paying attention to how you’ve got your bike set up for the Gerbing gloves.
In my defense it was July, and State College was in the fiery grip of a heat wave.
If you could spare the time to describe how your gloves are wired, and also what bits corroded that would be a great help.
I personally think that the combination of heated grips and enclosing hand shields (I would go with Tucano Urbano if I went that route) would be heaven. But I hate the look of hand shields.
So I think I’ll put Gerbing gloves on my Santa list and cross my fingers.
I was thinking I’d install an outlet on the left knee pad have that hooked up to a Warm-n-Safe Heattroller digital heat control.
What do you think?
Dang Steve, your heat issues somehow got transmitted to my URAL Rig, Valencia. Lost the heated grips on the way home but luckily the temperatures were in the upper 30s. By the end of the ride, my fingers were feeling the cold though.
Found a worn spot in the wiring, it must have been contacting metal somewhere and blowing the inline fuse.
RichardM: The electric gloves are working again so I think I’m good for awhile. As far as the neoprene grips — are you talking about a Hippo Hands kind of thing?
Sort of. They are some sort of stiff foam. You slip them over the levers and such and use Velcro straps to hold them on. The opening facing you is much larger than Hippo Hands so it’s easy to put your hands in and out even when wet. The ones I have are made by Arctic Cat for ATVs and snow machines.
W: Making photographs in the cold is a challenge. The point and shoot cameras are small so I have to take my gloves off to operate it. Takes only a few moments to freeze your fingers…
bob skoot: I have the same problem remembering to unplug. Probably contributed to the connector failure.
Months of cold weather ahead!
Charlie6: Dom, sorry to hear about the URAL failure with the heated grips. Always something isn’t it.
Don’t think I’ll add a battery lead for the gloves to the spare. This one lasted years. I’ll take my chances unless I head to Alaska.
David: Mine is pretty straightforward and I leave the connector hanging from the front of the seat. I know people use the controllers for the gloves but I can’t see why. When it’s cool I just wear the gloves without hooking them up. When it’s cold I need full power.
I agree, the hand shields look bad but they do work. I’m not ready to ugly up the Vespa yet though.
As far as connections for the gloves — attached the leads to the battery, run the cable to wherever you want it and that’s about it. Nothing hard at all. I use mine for the gloves on the road and the Battery Tender in the garage. Power flows both ways.
The end of the lead where I plug in failed because of corrosion. It hangs out year round and I suspect the elements got to it.