Motorcycle Winter Wonderland Pt. 2

In our last blog we brought to your attention the necessity of wearing the proper winter gear. We’ve all ridden in cold weather and wished we had that extra something to keep us warmer and we suggested heated grips as a good place to start. Although, heated grips are a great place to start they are by no means the only thing you can do. In this blog post we will discuss the things you can add to your winter gear to keep you warm during those cold months and extend your driving season.

Just like the heated grips, heated gear liners are the perfect way to keep your core body temperature up and keep you riding. Most liners or heated gear work best when they are under a jacket or pants and they are not your most outer layer of clothing. In fact, manufacturers tell you that they are not meant to be your most outer layer. Likewise, heated liners are not meant to be worn directly over skin, instead, they are to be worn over a single layer of clothing to minimize the skin contact in case they actually get too hot. Think of the liners as your middle layer. Moreover, heated jacket liners are designed to plug into a DC power source and can be very easily daisy-chained to connect to your heated gloves, and/or heated pant liners. Depending on the brand of jacket liner that you get, they can have a different layout of where the heat pads are placed but most have at least 3, two in the chest are and one in the back..

Heated pant liners work the exact same way that jacket liners work except they are for your lower body. Pant liners are also not meant to be work directly over skin, but over a single layer of clothing and they are also not meant to be worn as your most outer layer of clothing either. Furthermore, just like the jacket liners they are designed to be plugged into a DC power source but can be more easily daisy-chained to work with your other heated gear. For example, if you have a heated jacket liner, you can connect that to your DC power source and daisy-chain that to your pant liners in order to keep the wiring to a minimal and everything powered up.

If you have gone to the extent of buying a heated jacket liner and a heated pant liner, chances are you are riding in very cold weather and more than likely that won’t be enough to keep you fully warm. Assuming you are going to go the whole way, we advise you to look into heated gloves and heated insoles for your boots. Heated gloves are exactly what they sound like, riding gloves that, when plugged into a DC power source, can generate heat and extend your riding season. Just like anything else we’ve mentioned that is heated, the gloves can also be daisy-chained to other heated gear. The heated insoles are very similar to the others previously mentioned. One thing to note though is that they are meant to replace the insoles your boots already comes with. Heated insoles are just about the last thing you’ll need in terms of heated gear and can be the end of a long, but very helpful, daisy-chain of heated gear. Think about it, if you have heated gloves connected to your power source, you can have these daisy-chained to your jacket liner. The jacket liner, in turn, will be connected to your pants liner and the pants liner will be connected to your heated insoles giving you the most warmth you’ll feel after getting out of your comfy bed.

In our next blog, we will continue to discuss this topic and give you ideas about other things you can wear in order to keep you warm and dry so please come back. Remember that riding season does not have to end just because it’s a little cold.