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OK, I have been procrastinating a little, but finally after two months and 3,000 miles of ownership, here are my thoughts and observations of the new Warm-n-Safe heated gloves. FINISH: My first impression of the Warm and Safe heated gloves were that they are very well made, which should be the case for $150! The leather is very soft and flexible with double stitching on all seams, double leather on palm areas, carbon fiber details on the knuckles and wrist, and a little reflective piping on the back of the hand. There is also soft polyester lining on the inside of the glove. Now the key feature of the glove, which seems to interest most people, is that these gloves are designed to be used with heated grips. They have no heating elements on the palm side of the gloves, only the back of the hand and fingers. This works great, as the gloves feel like medium weight gloves and provide excellent finger dexterity.  FIT: The gloves fit very true to size. I have shorter fingers and wear size medium, but many gloves I buy have fingers that are too long which leaves an excess amount of materials at the end of my fingers (a pain for pressing buttons on the Zumo). These gloves fit my fingers perfectly, which means that they might be a little short for others with longer fingers. The only thing in the fit that I was not crazy about was the Carbon Fiber knuckle guards. It may be hard to explain, but the contour (which resembles knuckles) is actually not as wide as my knuckles. I could feel the left and right edges of the carbon fiber on the top of my left and right knuckles. This bugged me a little a first, unlike my Olympia Cold Throttle gloves where the molded knuckles on the glove fits my knuckles perfectly. I got used to the carbon fiber after a while, but I still think that is an area that could be improved.  WATER PERFORMANCE: Over Thanksgiving, while still in Alabama, I took a trip to Tampa and hit three hours of rain on the way. This is where I found out that the gloves are not water proof, not even water resistant. Within 15-30 minutes the gloves were water logged. Even though I really did not need the heat, I turned it on so my hands could at least be warm (even though wet). I thought the gloves had a breathable waterproof liner, but after looking at the company website (www.warmnsafe.com) again I noticed that it said: "The Warm & Safe "Ultimate" Heated Gloves that we sell on our site has NO breathable waterproof lining and no insulation." It would be very nice if they could be made water proof without adding extra bulk to the gloves. One feature that I was unsure about in the beginning was the rubber shield wiper mounted on the left index finger. It looked like it would get in the way, but that was not the case. In fact the wiper works great! The rubber did not get hard in cold weather, so it proved to be very useful and practical. Although, since the gloves are not water proof, you may not be able to use the wiper during rain (unless you don't mind having wet hands).   COLD WEATHER: This is really what these gloves were made for. I used the heat even on 50 degree days, just to feel real toasty, but it is not till the 30's that you really need the heat. From the mid 20's to the 30's my hands felt nice and warm! In fact later I found that the gloves might have been getting a little too warm; as I discovered that I had burnt a couple of my knuckles and even had a small blister on my left pinky finger (sorry no picture of that one). Following my wet weather experience during Thanksgiving, I had purchased some Fox River Wick Dry Sta-Dri Liner Gloves from Whitehorse Gear. These ended up working great as an extra barrier from the heat elements in the gloves. This combination proved to be very comfortable, even with temps down into the mid teens. I did feel like my index fingers were starting to get a little cold, but that seemed to be caused by the heated grips not being as hot on the inside edge of the grips. Currently, I have ridden with these gloves in temps down to 8 degrees, which might be the limits of both the gloves and the OEM heated grips. During a 30 minute ride, with both heaters max'd out, my figures were starting to get cold. And that was in Denver, so it was a dry cold!   ANOTHER QUALITY OBSERVATION: After two months of use I still feel like the gloves are generally very well made, but I did find a weak spot. The hook side of Velcro on the wrists is almost totally gone. It seems to me that they (maybe the glove maker in Pakistan) substituted an inferior product in place of higher quality Velcro brand material. It is easy to fix, so maybe not a bid deal, but for $150 it should not have failed (this soon). I will contact Warm-n-Safe to express my concerns.  CONCLUSION: Would I buy them again? Yes. But if I needed to purchase some heated gloves again, I would not rule out trying something different (like Gerbing G3's). I do like the company Warm-n-Safe, I do like the concept of heated gloves for those with heated grips, and overall the gloves are very effective in cold weather and provide a level of comfort that I have never had before in winter riding. So even with a couple areas where I can see the need for improvement, I would still give the gloves an overall "thumbs up"!  | ||
| Hdbobwithabuell |
Nice write up. Thanks for the info! It does seem a bit strange to put a rain wiper on a glove that isn't waterproof. |
