Dressing for Winter?

[positivecarry]

Any of you seen this outfit: http://www.revzilla.com/product/alpinestars-winter-tech-performance-suit ?

I'm not sure if I want to mess with the wires of heated clothing (maybe I'm being stubborn), but want to stretch the riding season as far into the winter as possible.  So far I've got leather gear for my jacket and pants...which I'm hearing is not as good as textile as far as getting layers underneath.  Any other tips?

[He Man]

Theres some good threads about winter gear. but I guess another one wouldnt hurt...

that suit, in all its glory is probably not worth it. especially when you consider the fact that its CHEAP fabric and a 1 piece. You can piece together a 2 piece underarmor set for $100 that will work great. Or you can check out cabellas.com for 100% NATURAL SILK liners.

Silk breathes and has a very insulating "glowing" warm feeling when you wear it in the cold. You can get set up for about $50 bucks and itll be tons more comfortable, just dont get it caught up in velcro and your good.

Also, you can only go so far without electrics.... Your hands will fail you first. It will be impossible to do non commuting distances without a set of electric gloves once the actual temp drops to 30-40 degrees.

My friend picked up a fieldsheer Highland jacket

http://www.motorcyclecloseouts.com/sport/textile+motorcycle+jackets/fieldsheer_highland+waterproof+jacket

I tried it on today, that thing is WARM, and looks awesome. He picked it up in the copper tone. Has that Desert Marine look to it. Id be able to wear that thing down to the 20s without any issues. Excellent armor too.

check out the good deal thread. there is a discount code for gerbings that i hopped on. My gloves come tomorrow.

[positivecarry]

Good advice, thanks.  I did a search and it sounds like Gerbings is the way to go.  How cumbersome are the wires?  Looks like the wires are less cumbersome, to be sure, than wearing tons of layers.

[He Man]

i dont have a vest so i dont know. Im actually sitting in my living room waiting for fedex to deliver the gloves.

the microwire is suppose to be THIN.

[Speeddog]

I've had a Gerbings vest for a couple years, keeps me comfortable down into the 30's.
Perfectly fine for anywhere I want to ride here in California.

I've got the rheostat controller that's made for mounting on the bike.
I run the wire out between the front of the seat and the tank.
When I'm not using it, the wire is tucked in with the other wiring under the seat.

[Slide Panda]

My the price on those johns is dear... highly doubt it's worth $220.

As said hands are the most vulnerable to cold - getting gloves that are wind proof or covers will help a lot. If you've got wind protection it makes a huge difference. Hand guards can help as well.

Something else important will be to protect your neck from cold air. A lot of blood moves through there - and having it exposed will have a pretty drastic impact on your body temp. I've got a thin balaclava from Turtle Fur that fits well under my helmet and helps protect my neck and seal around my jacket collar. For real cold there's a fleece tube I double up.

As I mentioned with hands - wind proofing is an important part of staying warm. There's a bunch of different solutions for this.  Cold weather jackets, over suits and wind proof onset layers. For the latter two, look up 'cold kullers'

[Speeddog]

FHE:

Situation 1
Low 30's temps.
Thermal underwear
T-Shirt
Sweater
Dainese zip-together leather jacket and pants
Insulated snowmobile bib overalls
Cordura enduro jacket
Turtle fur balaclava and fleece neck tube
Felt like the f'n michelin man.

Froze my ass off, felt like my hands and feet were going to crack and fall off.

Ordered the Gerbings within 24 hours of return.

Situation 2, a week later....
Low 30's temps.
Thermal underwear
T-Shirt
Sweater
Dainese zip-together leather jacket and pants
Gerbings vest

Had a great ride, hands and feet got a little cold, but not uncomfortable.

[somegirl]

Situation 2, a week later....
Low 30's temps.
Thermal underwear
T-Shirt
Sweater
Dainese zip-together leather jacket and pants
Gerbings vest

Had a great ride, hands and feet got a little cold, but not uncomfortable.

For comparison, my ride last night.  I have poor circulation to my extremities.

Low 40's temps
Jeans with Dainese textile overpants
T-shirt
Sweatshirt
Gerbings heated liner (with full sleeves)
Rev'It textile jacket
Neck scarf
Rev'It H2O gloves
Dainese waterproof boots

About an hour ride, only a few minutes of that was on freeway.

My heated grips are currently not working (bad switch).

Torso was very comfortable.
Legs were a bit cold but not too bad.
Toes had gone numb, not so bad, I just couldn't feel them.
Hands were in absolute agony, to the point where it was seriously distracting me from my riding and I had difficulty operating the controls.  Even after I got home and warmed up my hands, they were still hurting for the next few hours.

[DoubleEagle]

I've found that Gerbing's heated gear works great for keeping you warm in cold weather.

They make socks, gloves, pant liners and Jacket liners.

They make a dual temperature controller that let's you control the amount of heat to various items at the same time.

Here's the tricky part . Each kind of motorcycle puts out so many extra watts of electric after it has powered the items that need to be powered on the bike while running , i.e. electronic fuel injection , alternator , headlights and so forth.

The trick is to be able to identify how many extra watts your bike has left over and each item of heated gear will say on it somewhere how much wattage it takes to operate that piece of heated gear.

If you have a larger bike like a BMW K1300GT which I have as well, it has enough extra wattage to power all 4 pieces of Gerbing's heated gear.

You don't want to have more items on than extra wattage your bike can handle.

Problems will happen and fast!

My '07 Ducati S4Rs has only enough extra wattage left over to power let's say 145 watts.

I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but as I remember , I could wear the gloves and the Jacket liner .

If you can keep your hands and your body core warm that will allow you to bundle up in layers for your legs .

Also I found that if I wore my back protector over the heated Jacket liner and under a leather Jacket the pressure of the back protector against the liner helped put the heat right on my back .

Dolph     

[DucHead]

I have the Tourmaster "Synergy" jacket liner and gloves.  I've ridden in the teens, 20s and 30s °F with comfort.  I might get the pant liners this winter and really put them to the test.   

The Synergy line uses carbon fiber heating elements rather than wires, and costs the same as Gerbings or others.

[Bun-bun]

Does anyone make a one piece heated underlayer like a union suit or longjohns?

[Bun-bun]

My friend picked up a fieldsheer Highland jacket

http://www.motorcyclecloseouts.com/sport/textile+motorcycle+jackets/fieldsheer_highland+waterproof+jacket

I tried it on today, that thing is WARM, and looks awesome. He picked it up in the copper tone. Has that Desert Marine look to it. Id be able to wear that thing down to the 20s without any issues. Excellent armor too.

Just got one of these in black. Haven't tested it yet, but it's definitely high quality, and warm fer sher. Runs a little big tho. I ordered the XL because that's what all of my other jackets are, should've got a large instead. Means I can wear a hoodie for an underlayer, but that may actually be too warm.
I'll post a review once I get to ride with it a few times.

[d6a9p6]

Once you do electric there is no going back- in the old days the widder vest would leave some crazy burn marks on the back but I was warm. The new Gerbing long sleeve liner and gloves should be the treat- With keeping the body core warm my feet never get cold anymore. Don