Heated grips

rccaulfield

Hot grips are an awful invention imo! Palms are warm fingers aching as usual! Muffs keep the WHOLE hand toasty!

Cuddlesworth

rccaulfield wrote: »

Hot grips are an awful invention imo! Palms are warm fingers aching as usual! Muffs keep the WHOLE hand toasty!

I have found if you grip the grips properly then your whole hand, tips included keep warm. If on the other hand you have the bad practise of fingers over both the levers, then no they won't work,

KamiKazi

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I have found if you grip the grips properly then your whole hand, tips included keep warm. If on the other hand you have the bad practise of fingers over both the levers, then no they won't work,

Bad practice? How is it bad practice?

MargeS

I got and fitted Hot Grips recently. Don't know why I waited so long to get them. Maybe it's the fact that I have smaller hands then men, but I can get my whole hand around the grip, so my fingers don't get cold.

Also there is a down side.....I left mine turned on last week and flattened my battery!

Cuddlesworth

KamiKazi wrote: »

Bad practice? How is it bad practice?

You have less control of the steering in case of a blowout, less throttle control and your creating a over-reliance on your front brakes rather then being more aware of keeping adequate reaction distances. Its not far off a person driving a car with their foot in a constant hover over their brakes for fear of what might happen.

KamiKazi

MargeS wrote: »

I got and fitted Hot Grips recently. Don't know why I waited so long to get them. Maybe it's the fact that I have smaller hands then men, but I can get my whole hand around the grip, so my fingers don't get cold.

Also there is a down side.....I left mine turned on last week and flattened my battery!

You could hook up a relay, that way they'll only come on if your ignition is on.

aurin07

bike depending.. handguards..

Hotblack Desiato

rccaulfield wrote: »

Hot grips are an awful invention imo! Palms are warm fingers aching as usual!

I've never found that, including on rides several hours long in just-above-freezing weather. A lot of aftermarket heated grips kits are pretty weak though.

Hotblack Desiato

KamiKazi wrote: »

You could hook up a relay, that way they'll only come on if your ignition is on.

Yeah and make sure the wiring on the switched side of the relay (that feeds the grips) has a fuse between the relay and the battery positive terminal. Unfused wiring is a big fire risk.

KamiKazi

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

You have less control of the steering in case of a blowout, less throttle control and your creating a over-reliance on your front brakes rather then being more aware of keeping adequate reaction distances. Its not far off a person driving a car with their foot in a constant hover over their brakes for fear of what might happen.

Less control of the steering yes, but far better reactions in the case of some twat car driver pulling out in front of you.

Over reliance on your front brakes? lol

It's completely different from a car driver driving with their foot over the brake constantly.

Hotblack Desiato

It is and it isn't, KamiKazi (great name by the way ) like a lot of things it depends on the circumstances. Doing the same thing all the time regardless of circumstances is bound to be wrong sometime.

If I was entering a junction and there was a car stopped at a side road, didn't look like they were going to pull out, I'd be covering the front brake just in case (and covering the horn button) but if I'd got my speed right on the way into the hazard, I wouldn't need to slow down any more.

If I was in any doubt that they might pull out, hadn't looked in my direction, etc. then I'd be braking and giving them a toot on the horn until I was sure either I'd be able to stop in time, or the danger had passed.

But riding with your fingers over the lever all the time is bad. It's either sloppy (means that you're not thinking but just doing things out of habit) or else it means you're riding on your nerves instead of looking ahead, planning ahead and thinking ahead. It's also bad in slippery conditions as it means that if a danger arises suddenly* you're more likely to grab a big handful of brake and maybe locking the front.

* apparently 'suddenly' is the word that appears most often in insurance reports! But really, on the road things rarely happen suddenly, what it really means is 'suddenly I noticed something that I hadn' t been paying attention to, or the clues were there earlier'. With experience (and training is even better) you can identify the drivers likely to pull out or cut you up or whatever even before they do it.

Hotblack Desiato

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

You have less control of the steering in case of a blowout

Much much better to make sure your tyres are in good condition, correctly inflated and that tyre tubes (on bikes with spoked wheels) are replaced asap after an emergency repair. Then you will almost certainly never have this problem.

Mate of mine was killed ten years ago when his front tyre blew out at 60MPH. He'd bought the bike about 3 months earlier, it turned out the front tube was more patches than tube. I'll never ride a bike with tubed tyres again. They're 19th century technology invented for bicycles after all and have improved little since then... unlike tubeless tyres, if they let go they let go all at once leading to loss of control.

Fabio

aurin07 wrote: »

bike depending.. handguards..

Want to get ones for the V-Strom and modify them for the Bandit actually...that be daycent.