handguards with bar-end mirrors

They have lots of negative reviews, but glad they worked for you. I've had heated grips on most of my previous dozen motorcycles, and they worked very well, but never found them too helpful, since the top of your fingers freeze anyway, even with winter gloves. And heated gloves are mostly a miss, like the reviews on the ones linked above, and are super bulky. I can't ride with those. So I just ride at the temperatures regular winter gloves allow me to. Plus don't really enjoy riding in cold weather, as I have to dial down the aggression in the twisties to the point it's not fun to ride anymore, and I only ride for the twisties . Now have a pair of Held Goretex winter gloves that hopefully will work a bit better than past examples in protecting the top of my fingers. Finally, installed a fused pigtail to charge the battery, but it only has a 7.5A fuse, I believe (need to check). How many do you need for heated gloves? Just curious. Have a great weekend.

Are you responding to my comment on the heated gloves? If so, I haven’t received them yet, so don’t know yet if they will work for me. If responding to the post about the heated gloves (again), do they have a lot of negative reviews? If so, then they have four times as many positive reviews, and that’s one of the reasons that I ordered them. I won’t pretend to know anything about them until I actually receive them and try them. They may be amazing...they may be shit — I don’t know. I’ll let you guys know my humble and personal (and largely worthless) opinion, though, if you’re interested. Haha.

Well, I received my new heated gloves a few days ago. It hasn’t been cold enough to really try them out, but I did this morning because I was anxious.

www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/gerbing-12v-vanguard-gloves

When I left the house this morning, it was 55°F, and it dropped to about 50° as I passed through remote fielded areas. This is not cold enough to cause me to normally break out my winter gloves, but I wanted to try them. Low temps are supposed to be in the 40s next week, so I’ll get a better feel for them.

Bottom line is that I’m happy with them, and will keep them. They plug right in to the auxiliary 12v pigtail that is at the bottom of my old Tourmaster heated vest (which still works great after 10 years of use). I started the bike and let it warm up a minute while I plugged in and donned my gear. The gloves were the last thing I put on, and I immediately smiled because they were already warm as I pulled them on. The heat level is controlled by the built in switch on the Tourmaster vest. I set it to the lowest setting and took off.

Both the vest and gloves must be set to the same heat setting, which works for me. Otherwise, a person can buy Gerber's controller in order to set gloves to a separate heat setting from the vest. Not necessary, in my opinion.

The gloves fit fine. Not amazing, but fine. As other reviewers had said, the thumb is oddly long. Otherwise, fit and finish are acceptable. They are not overly bulky like other non-heated winter gloves I have used in the past. They have only 150 grams of Thinsulate insulation, so relatively light as insulated gloves go, which I prefer. The gauntlet fit over the ends of my sleeves nicely in order to keep the wind out.

My hands and fingers were evenly warmed. No hot/cold spots. Surprisingly pleased with this quality. It really was pretty awesome to arrive at work with warm fingers. This made me happy.

The wires are kind of a pain. But, I guess it’s worth dealing with them in order to ride comfortably, with toasty core and fingers. I tucked extra wire into the bottom of my jacket to help manage it. This (the wires) is the biggest drawback, in my opinion.

I am interested in a wireless, battery powered option, such as Narcissus' post. Those intrigue me as well. Have to be prepared to replace batteries once a year, perhaps? And, of course, they probably cost more initially, which shouldn’t be a concern for safety and comfort.

I am also interested in the handguards, if you choose to go that route, morbo. And, if you can figure out how to make them work with bar end mirrors. It would be nice if hand guards did the job during cold months, eliminating the need for heavier winter gloves. I wonder how effective they are, or if ambient air temperature would still require some heavier gloves in order to be comfortable. There is definitely a big difference between air temperature and "wind chill" at 60 mph. www.weather.gov/safety/cold-wind-chill-chart

Finally, I also like the idea of heated grips, if there was a set that real-world users really liked. From reviews that I’ve read/seen, most users feel that the heated grips either do not work as well as they would like, or have the unsightly controller mounted to the bars.

I think all three options (heated gloves, hand guards, heated grips) are good options. Just depends on the rider. I won’t tell anyone that one option is better than another, especially if I haven’t tried it.