If there's any one heated article of clothing to buy...

[salty_monk]

I put heated grips and Old style OEM KLR hand guards on Carrie's GS500(she has chronically cold hands). The Grips are great but the $30 hand guards made a HUGE difference.
I'll agree with the others who have said "vest" have to keep the core warm.

Motorcycle Superstore is having a sale and the Firstgear Thermo one piece cold weather suit is on for $171

4.6/5 with 319 reviews...

I have a set of these hand guards I took off my KLR that I don't want a lot of money for....

As to your original question VEST! You need to keep your core warm. That encourages the body to pump warm blood to the extremities rather than shutting them down, heating your hands or feet is pointless if your core is cold.

Make sure anywhere big pipes go close to the skin is covered well. Wrists, neck. Wearing a balaclava makes a HUGE difference to all over body warmth.
(Took me from cold & shivering to pleasantly warm on a 32 degree day).

By the way, with the proper controllers on a vest a GS can EASILY support heated grips & the 60w of the vest at decent speeds (turn them off at idle). I have run both on mine. You need a healthy charging system & battery obviously & one of the newer Shindengen RR's helps keep the volts up especially at low RPM (I have seen this first hand).

[Gregory]

I just guzzle shots of anti-freeze at every rest stop.

[Dogma]

+1 on the balaclava and all the other ideas for keeping wind off.

I hate sitting behind a windshield, though. My rain gear is also an excellent wind breaker, so I wear that. Admittedly, I've only been into the low- or mid-40s with the rain gear and well insulated gloves. Hand guards to protect the knuckles helps the gloves do their job without needing to be electrified. I've also discovered that my knee armor helps enormously to keep my legs warm by keeping the wind and the cold rain gear off of my knees and shins. My boots are both wind and water proof.

Anything much colder than 40s will require electrified gear for me. The DIY electrified vest has been on my to-do list for a little while now.

Pin-lock or Fog City anti-fog visor inserts work well, but they won't keep your glasses from fogging. The breath-guard anti-fogging things work too, but are too fiddly for my taste.

[bluewool]

I have a set of these hand guards I took off my KLR that I don't want a lot of money for....

Hey, thanks for the offer! Carrie already has a set and they won't fit on any of my current bikes.

[salty_monk]

Ok. Old Skool will PM you

[850 Combat]

I agree with the vest. If you keep your core body temperature up, circulation of warm blood to your extremities will be unrestricted. Let your core temp begin to drop, and circulation to your extremities will be restricted. Vests work. Turn it up high, and your hands will stay warm better than using gloves. I've had two sets of Widder electric gloves. I have a Gears vest I like a lot. I also have a Tourmaster The tour master has better controls. The Gears has an on off switch. On off is more reliable. I had trouble with the controller on my Tourmaster, which was fixed on warranty. The Gears and Eclipse vests use the same SAE connector as a Battery Tender, which is convenient.

In my personal experience, the electrical system can handle it.

[Redman]

Got email today from Motorcycle Gear (used to be New Enough) for heated gear.

http://www.motorcyclegear.com/street/heated_gear_and_snow_helmets/

I have been looking at TOur Master gloves.

WHen behind big fairing, with TourMaster jacket with liner, and chaps or riding pants, and kerchief around neck, heavy winter riding gloves, at 40 or a little bleow degrees all is good for half hour or so, then hands are getting cold.

And any little air leak is a problem, like up back of jacket, or around jacket neck, or up panlt leg of chaps.

If stand up on pegs to stretch legs, and get into the wind blast, man, oh, man - It would all be over, done, have to quite in about three minutes without fairing.


>>>>>>>>>>>Later Note: Advertised MotorCycleGear special for the TourMaster gloves is same price as in Dennis Kirk catalog.

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[tkent02]

If stand up on pegs to stretch legs, and get into the wind blast, man, oh, man - It would all be over, done, have to quite in about three minutes without fairing.


.

+1 If I take the unfaired bike on a cold day I'm done in a few minutes. OK for short trip to the store or a beer run or whatever but no more. With the fairing, in colder weather with the same clothing, I'm comfy and good all day.

[Guest]

To expand on Crankthat's message:

Don't go by motorcycle unless both your trip south, and the return trip, can be delayed for any length of time, until the roads are clean and temperatures are high enough. Winter storms usually cause car crashes, and they have four wheels. Some particular road hazards:

1) Any moisture makes roads much slicker. In the winter, invisible ice is common.

2) Bridges freeze faster. Don't ride if the temperature is near freezing, unless there hasn't been any precipitation.

3) Winter freezing-thaw cycles are the primary cause of pot holes.

4) Maintain longer following distances so that you can better assess road hazards.

5) Fogging visors have been mentioned several times. Any fogging reduces visibility. If you can't keep your visor/sunglasses defogged, don't ride.

6) Many cars will have frosted over windows, and will be less likely to see you.

7) Cage drivers won't expect you, which puts you at greater risk.

8) Being heavily clothed and cold reduces your alertness and reaction time.

9) Snow on the shoulders melts during the day and covers roads with water.
=======
My personal experience with winter riding is small: two 125 mile rides in about 10F. I wore many layers: underclothes, thermal underwear, jeans and heavy shirt, thin socks inside heavy wool socks, insulated winter boots, snowmobile coveralls, leather motorcycle jacket, scarf (ends tucked in well), glove liners, snowmobile gloves, full face helmet. I was behind a windshield.

Each way, I stopped for hot cocoa or coffee in the middle of the ride.

The windshield not only blocked half of the wind, it also allowed me to keep the visor open far enough that it didn't fog up. I opened it all the way at stop lights.

A throttle lock type cruise control helps. When the right hand is clamped on the throttle, blood flow is reduced. Your right hand will get cold much faster than the left hand, unless you use a cruise control.

Snowmobile clothes are designed for bitter cold and high winds.

My leather jacket had the classic, functional styling. Wide lapels covered the zipper and snapped in place, preventing wind from flowing through it. The belt cinched the waist tight, to almost eliminate wind blowing up into the jacket at the waist. (I had a 32" waist then.) Zippered wrists allowed me to put jacket sleeves deeply inside the generous gauntlets on snowmobile gloves.

I was cool, but not cold. I rode in the middle of the day, when drivers are most alert, and the low winter sun is least likely to cause glare.

Be sure that your tires have lots of tread left. Check air pressure and adjust before starting.

Good luck.

[tkent02]

I hate sitting behind a windshield, though.

Surely you are not looking through the windshield, are you?

[1_v8_merc]

You want a warm Throttle Hand, and a Fairing to keep the wind off your chest.

You can have the biggest jacket on earth, but it's not going to keep your hands warm. Plus, it's just going to create massive drag and drag you around.
And if you lose your hands, you gotta pull over every 30 minutes to unfreeze them.

You want a fairing, so when the time is right, you can lean down, and warm up.
Also, a fairing will suck fog and rain Right off your helmet lens, if you lean Down into the bike. And it obviously keeps wind off your body.

[Shopshirt]

I will say this from personal experience. My wife and I rode from Austin to San Diego, CA in December and it was cold! you have to remember for any speed above about 40-45 mph the temperature drops about 20 degrees. (see the chart at http://www.math.wichita.edu/~richardson/windchill.html) On many of the days we wore the following long johns, sweater, winter gear, and our rain gear just to try to keep our body heat in this was with a windscreen.

I would recommend the following:

• Go to your local Army-Navy Surplus and pick up a pair of the Black Leather Goretex issue boots. (When you look inside the boots it will have an orange quilted liner. and you can probably pick them up cheap and new) My feat stayed warm all the way through the trip.
• a balaclava also available at your army surplus. Get the polar fleece style not the full hood knitted one as air will get through the weave. Even with a windshield that air will get to your neck and it is painful.
• Your hands are next. If I were to do it again, I would recommend heated gloves. I wore my big Michelin man gloves and my hands would not stay warm. the whole trip we were putting pocket warmers in our gloves but that didn't help my knuckles which after awhile felt like icicles were jabbing at them so I would try to slide the handwarmers in on top it helped for a little while.
• The other thing I would recommend would be an electric vest. The most important thing you can do is maintain your core temperature. Going hypothermic is often undetectable until its too late.

[kdo58]

I have the proper motorcycle clothing and the only thing that gets cold are my hands, I use these they work great and are cheap

http://www.pollyheaters.com/ph300.htm

[chuck hahn]

Heated vest and the pants that plug into the vest like a full body deal..wool socks and thinsulate insulated boots..extra pairs of socks to change if the feet get damp from fog or heavy morning humidity. May wish to rub some bear grease or mink oil in to the boots to helps them shed water instead of absorbing it. If you have a miltary surplus nearby, bet the black leather gloves and a few pairs of glove inserts too..they are the warmest gloves ive ever worn.

[Redman]

I too spent a lot of time thinking about heated grips, verses heated gloves or vest or jacket or pants or chap liners. I had all the same discussion myself about keping core warm or keeping the extgremitys warm.

My thought was that if my concern was long rides (2-3-4 hours) in cool temps (50) that the "core" idea would work.
BUt my concern is more in colder temps (30-35-40) that I could not go very long at all, deathly cold in like 15 minutes.

And I let the amp draw be the deciding factor. Gloves are only 2 amp draw.
And got an email from New Enough Motorcycle Gear for the TourMaster Synergy 2.0 and sale for $161. Then notice was same price a Dennis Kirk and Bike Bandit.

Got annaul bonus this year, (weeks pay) so made a couple charitable dontations and got the gloves on order.


Ew, much better.

Is a nuisance dealing with all the wires hanging out. Maybe will be better if can tack the wiring onto the jacket liner. And if take two steps the contoller is down to my knee and wires just about dragging on grounnd. Maybe need a bit of velcro right there on the pants.

34 degrees,
on bike with small fairing, but hands out in the breeze.
55 mph.
If controller on 4 of 5 "clicks" it is quite warm on back of hands. I figure dont want it so warm that rest of body might "back down" its own heat.
So set controller at 3 and hands just slightly warm.
In town, had controller at 2 or even 1 at times.

Went for lot longer ride than before at 34 degrees. And previously I would have been suffereing long after I got home.

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