Modern Vespa

It's my post 1005!

In celebration I've changed my avatar to the toaster I'd like for my prize, please!

(Of course this is the second toaster post today. Congrats to xantufrog for his milestone too!)

We've been having some beautiful warm Fall weather for the past week here in the Bay Area, but it's cooling off at night and cold weather is coming. Anybody have recommendations on warm - but not overly bulky - riding gloves? I know someone mentioned that in a pinch you could wear a latex glove under your regular riding gloves, but I'd rather have a glove that would do a good job of blocking the wind and being cozy but breathable.

Anybody have a glove they strongly recommend? Thanks for any advice!

Just a heads up: there is no (non-heated) glove that can keep your hand warm in cold weather. The conduction is just too great for your body to overcome.
For me, the breakpoint is around 61-deg F. Ski gloves can take me down to 58 or 57 degrees. I'm talking about 5 minutes and I'm in trouble. You might look into wind chill ratings of ski gloves to see how low you can go.

Living in Mountain View, I only see, what 30 or 40 days a year like this, but I gave up and went for heated gloves. They are a bit of a pain.

My ST1300 has heated grips. Sometimes I just hop on that for what normally would be a scooter outing just to avoid putting on the jacket with the wiring harness.

Of course, the trade off is expense and installation hassles vs. plugging up every time you get on and off the machine.
Oh yeah: hand guards can help. Some of the brands will show up in a search.

I've been debating on whether to get heated grips or heated gloves.

Of course, along with the heated gloves comes: shirt, pants and socks.

Is it really a pain to have electricly heated gloves?
Do heated handle grips work at all?

Signed,
Cold In New York

I have heated grips, a windscreen that "covers" my hands, use handlebar muffs and my hands were still cold. I bought a pair of Joe Rocket Ballistic gloves yesterday- and combined with Tourmaster fleece glove liners my hands were pretty good. Still- after about an hour riding in blustery 8C weather I was glad to get indoors. Some say that silk glove liners help- I'll try those next.

Glove liners help quite a bit.

I just got a pair of Rev'it Unix H2O gloves that are great. They keep your hands toasty warm with out the bulk.

Tourmaster Winter Elite gloves.

$90.....best cold weather gloves I have tried.....most comfey.

I have a pair of Aprilia gloves that are alot like ski gloves, and they have so far been TOTALLY waterproof and warm in the worst of rain.

Wired gloves are a pain IMO.

R

8)

I have this on one of my motorcycles. Works great and the price is right too.

http://www.dual-star.com/index2/Rider/heated_grip_kit1.htm

Hoser

Congrats on the new post count - you should get a toaster made direct from the MV-Bots skin.

For me the Gerbing's Lithium-Ion gloves have been great (no plugging in) and you have very warm fingers. t's been in the 30's here at night lately and I have been very comfortable on the scooter. They aren't the cheapest option out there but worth it to be comfy without wiring your self up and they aren't bulky so you can still use your blinkers, kill switch etc. For me personally with warm fingers and a windshield I can ride all year - just too bad the snow sticks to the ground around these parts and makes ice

+1

Silk liners from wintersilks.com, get the three snowflake ones. If you get a dark color like black, wash them first, I had some dye come off onto my gloves.

But they work really well with a warm glove down to about 35-40 F. Below that, I'd have to have too bulky a glove, so I suspect it would be heated grips next. But I can save my money and my wattage because I am a 35 degree wimp.

After being a highway worker, and a year round rider, I've discovered that weather resistant mittins (not that expensive either) with thinsulate faired better than my $120 harley gloves. The fact is, you only need your thumbs to operate the buttons. The other day (27 F degrees) I wore one mitten and one of my winter motorcycle gloves. Mitten hand started out cooler, but stayed consistent for my 45 minute commute. The gloved hand started out hot and was way too cold by the end of the ride.

Also, I can wear thinner gloves underneath, and there's a pocket in the mittens I can put a charcol hand warmer.

When it gets consistently cold, I've got gauntlets to mount on the scooter.

At that point, its the only way. I hear some folks in NYC just split open 3 liter soda bottles and mount them as shields over the handlebars!

61 degrees F is your breakpoint for cold hands? Geez, you do have bad gloves, man! I find I can ride comfortably down to just above freezing temps without getting cold hands! The secret?

1} Make sure you have a windshield on your scoot that blocks most of the direct wind blast away from your hands. VERY IMPORTANT!

2} Good gloves? Forget those thickly padded "ski gloves"! I use the JR Ballistic gloves. These are amazingly warm gloves for being so freaking thin! They have a tough wind-blocking outer shell over a loose inner liner that retains heat amazingly well!
In fact these JR Ballistic models are the warmest gloves I've ever worn in 28 years of motorbiking (including all-winter Polar Bear Club MC rallies)! They're warmer even then the thickly padded Olympia snowmobile type gloves I have!
They're also advertised as waterproof, but if they are they're only slightly so.. -But warm? -Sheesh, using these, combined with a wind blocking shield on the bike, I've never felt the need to even consider 'heated' gloves!

I have the 2005 JR Ballistic model gloves that I got on sale ($25) from newenough.com a while back. They were so good I got a second pair, and recommended them to friends who bought them and were also surprised as to how good (meaning ~warm~) they are!! I don't know about the later year models tho; hopefully they would still be the same way...

The best way to keep your hands warm is to keep your core body temperature up. A warm or heated vest works well.

I saw a very interesting show on hypothermia a while back. They put a volunteer into a freezing chamber and had him perform manual dexterity tasks. As his core temperature dropped, his body responded by constricting the blood vessels in his extremities. His hands became cold, then numb. Now here's the fun part:

Putting heavy gloves on did nothing as long as his trunk wasn't insulated.

Wearing a heated vest enabled him to keep working in sub-zero temperatures even without gloves.

Now I certainly wouldn't suggest riding without gloves, but it seems that keeping your body warm is very important for riding safely.

Mary, congratulations on your 1005th post. That is a fine and very expensive looking toaster you're requesting. I'll have to check the storage room later in the Lounge and see if we have one of those models lying around or not.

I use Harley's heated gloves. They plug in to the same connector that the Battery Tender uses. A thermostat regulates how warm they get. If you are prone to cold hands these are really worth it. My BMW has heated grips which work pretty well but it also blocks the wind with grip protectors that come with a GS. Since my scooter doesn't have wind protection for my hands the heated gloves work best for it.

A variety of choices from my massive collection


1. Skiers' glove liners: great as liners and have a pocket for a chemical heater, but useless by themselves

2. Sturdy wind-proof liner gloves for when you still need some protection once you take the outer gloves off (temps less than 25F)

3. Kombi all-leather gloves with down insulation: for when it's too cold to worry about armor (temps less than 20F)

4. Nice insulated textile men's gloves which leave me enough space for liners (30-55F)

5. Wool/silk liner gloves: these are a great thing, but tend to get eaten by velcro

+1000 I learned that the best way to keep my hands warm is to wear some insulated bib-overalls. I used to be a real wimp - fingers felt like they'd been hit by a hammer every time I had to work in the cold. Not anymore, thanks to a tip from my construction worker brother-in-law. Keep the legs warm and your feet and hands will be much more comfortable.

Check this out,you dont even need gloves

http://www.hippohands.com/Hippo%20Hands.htm

I'm not even picky -- and I'm still waiting for mine!

Congrats, QuipMC!

As for Winter gloves, I just got these:
http://www.newenough.com/gloves/insulated_and_or_waterproof/joe_rocket/nitrogen_motorcycle_gloves.html
(We'll see how it goes)

Thanks to everybody for some really useful responses on gloves! (I worried a bit after the first one, but everybody came through with great ideas!) And L from Jersey! WHAT a collection! And I'm impressed you pulled them all out to photograph them!

Thanks too for the congratulatory messages. I'm not going to hold my breath for this toaster though, Benny...it's a "future" prototyple toaster, and they've not yet figured out how to get the glass panels hot enough to actually toast the toast. I'd sure be interested if they worked out the bugs, though.

Ah Marcster! Just what are we going to do for toast without our toasters? I do have an old one at home, but it seems to choose how much it feels like toasting my bread each time on a whim. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it takes two tries to get toast dark enough, and sometimes I have to bounce it on the counter to get the toast to pop up before it burns. (And it's the same kind of bread each time.)

Thanks to all who answered! Lots of good advice!

Hah! That's maybe a third of my collection

It drives my husband crazy, except when he's borrowing the larger ones off of me

Possible solution:

Allows you to toast even during power outages!!! Not the easiest to use after dark or during a rainstorm though... High winds increase the degree of difficulty too.

+1. They are very nice.

+2.
The hidden rain cover actually works pretty well too.

I tried everything to keep my hands warm: liners, windscreen, raiding my ski apparel drawer-- My other gear is plenty warm, including a Termoscud laprobe, but my own insulation is minimal-- so I finally broke down and had Gerbing wire a pair of waterproof Joe Rocket gloves that fit well and otherwise keep me dry [got those from www.newenough.com].

It's a few extra minutes to run the wire harness through my jacket sleeves, but on colder days, it's miraculous to have that radiant heat surrounding my digits.

Most of our scooters don't have the juice to power electric vests, but handle the gloves just fine.

Cheers,

--Deborah

p.s. L from Jersey, it looks like you're just a woman who loves gloves too much.

I have the Tourmaster but subseqently bought REV'IT CelsiusWinter Glove now called fahrenheit. Find it way superior. Had read a review don't remember where that rated them best winter gloves.

I assumed you were talking Joe Rocket Ballistic gloves, but found there are several; None for $25 either.