How to keep warm on two wheels

Having to put my bike (currently a 1983 Honda Shadow 500) away for the winter is always hard. My bike is more than a vestigial rebel flag (although it is that, too). There's something very calming about it; even a 10-minute ride can cool my jets when I'm stressed. It connects me to living in the moment the way little else has.

I get pretty cranky without it, so I've always pushed the envelope when cold weather hits.

When it became apparent in December 2006 that the first snowfall of the season was going to be late and the streets were going to be mostly free of ice, I investigated ways of staying warm and extending the season.

Found the Gerbing's website, where they sell heated clothing for motorcycle enthusiasts. Their gear is adapted to run on a 12-volt bike battery and they even sell a lithium fanny-pack battery.

The market is so small, however, that I was unable to find a single retailer in Toronto, Canada 's largest city, that carried the full suit components. A few carried vests and heated grips, which would be a less expensive option but without the head-to-toe "surround warmth" (thanks to Steve Hueston for contributing this term) that I lusted after.

Snow City Cycle Marine offered a 10 per cent discount and free shipping when I put in a special order for the whole suit, however, and my order (everything but the socks, which were on back order) took only three days to arrive at the shop. This was pretty good, considering it was Christmas week. If I had ordered directly from the Gerbing's website I might still be waiting for my order to clear customs.

The installation of the lead from the battery is as easy as installing a battery tender lead. Just remove the two battery bolts, slide the loop connectors over the bolts matching red to positive and black to negative, and re-install the bolts.

The bike must be ON and the thermostat OFF when you plug any of the Gerbing's gear into the lead from the battery. And you should unplug the Gerbing's gear before turning the bike off, to avoid energy spikes and potential damage to your alternator and battery.

I had worried that the pants liner would make any pants I put on over them too tight for the knees to bend comfortably and thought I might have to wear one size larger to keep from feeling bound. But my fears were unfounded. The liner is of a slippery synthetic that is very thin and fit inside a regular pair of jeans or leathers just fine -- although I did have to kick out my legs and shake them a bit once mounted to settle it all comfortably.

The recommended configuration is to plug the gloves into the jacket liner sleeves, the pants into the bottom of the jacket liner, and the socks into the pants liner legs. This is by far the tidiest way to do it, requiring only one dangling lead from the battery that connects to the jacket liner.

There are three flaws with this system:

1. with this configuration, the pants liner and gloves don't get as warm as the jacket liner, which gets too warm. So warm, in fact, that if you buy it without the heat controller -- which is really nothing but a thermostat -- you'd be constantly turning it off and on to keep from baking. So, if you're using the jacket liner, the heat controller is an important component.
2. the wire leads from the jacket liner that plug into the gloves poke out awkwardly, making it difficult to pull the gauntlet part of the glove up over your jacket -- especially with both gloves on, which is the only way you can pull up the last glove to go on. Poking the connector up your sleeve before pulling a glove up helps.
   
3. if you hook it all together in one continuous loop (as recommended) with the thermostat controlling everything, you have to turn the jacket liner up all the way to get maximum warmth from the gloves and the pants liner.

You could jack the gloves in separately with their own lead to the battery without the thermostat, so their default would be maximum heat, allowing you to use the rheo to keep the jacket liner from browning you like toast.

This can be done at no additional cost, since battery leads come with each component. But it will also require yet more wires to dangle from the battery and off you, which can be a bit cumbersome and distracting and will require more de-plugging before you dismount.

In practice, my hands didn't get cold even when I turned the thermostat down so the jacket was comfortable. But so far I've tested it at highway speeds at only -2 temperature. More tests are required to confirm whether that remains true once you get into more minus territory.

Having driven through double digit minus temperatures with only insulated clothing that still left me chilled to the bone (and bulked me up uncomfortably) , it was quite exhilarating to be zipping along in sub-zero temperatures while remaining lithe, flexible and quite toasty. "Whoo-hoo!" escaped my lips a few times during the test run as I reveled in how well this gear worked, allowing me to be zooming about on a day I would normally be house-bound.

I really wish I'd had this gear when someone dared me to ride my first motorcycle through a Montreal winter in 1979.

This stuff is expensive, however, for what is essentially clothing shaped heating pads adapted to run on 12 volts. Jacket liner, pants liner, socks, gloves and the rheo came to about $934 CDN. Prices of individual pieces are listed on the end of this report (the gloves alone are almost $190 CDN).

At almost $81 CDN, the thermostat in particular is a bit of a money-grab. That's a lot of money for components that likely cost less than $10. If you build your own you'll void the warranty on the liners and gloves, however. And you better know what you're doing, since you could fry all the other components.

The Canadian Gerbing's distributor is in Vancouver, so Canadians can avoid paying customs duty by ordering it through a local shop instead of through the Gerbing's website, whose head office is in Washington . Depending on the local shop, there might be some markup so you'll have to compare the price the shop quotes to the website quotes (and calculate the duty on your own) to determine your best deal.

Component price list:

Gerbings heated jacket liner list price: $ 299.96
with 10 per cent discount: $ 269.96

Gerbings heated pants liner list price: $ 249.95

with 10 per cent discount: $ 224.96

Gerbings heated gloves list price: $ 189.95
with 10 per cent discount: $ 170.96

Gerbings heated socks list price: $ 79.95
with 10 per cent discount: $ 71.96
Gerbings controller (rheostat) list price: $ 89.99
with 10 per cent discount: $ 80.99

Total $909.79 plus $127.137 taxes: $ 1,037.16
Total with 10% discount: $818.83 plus $114.66 taxes: $ 933.49