| Author | Message | ||
     Crusty |
Hey, Froggy; How's that Venture (Ventura?) heated gear working out? How about a real world report for the rest of us looney winter riders? I will say that I will not buy another Gerbings product based on my personal experiences with my jacket liner and my eye witness experiences of watching someone else's problems with their jacket liner. The Widder vest that "shrank" worked flawlessly for many years before it didn't fit any more, as did the Aerostich Airvantage electric vest that also "shrank". I've been thinking about a Warm-n-Safe jacket liner for next year, but the gear that Froggy bought at the New York IMS impressed me. So, before I start planning for next year, I just want to know how it's working. | ||
| Bartimus |
I used widder products until they also shrank.  While I have no experience with the Venture/Ventura heated gear, I've been using firstgear heated jacket liner, gloves, and boot soles to stay warm throughout the winter. With 4 seasons of use, I'm very happy with the warmth, and the reliability of the products... | ||
| Ratbuell |
I've had good luck with gerbings. The couple failures I have encountered (I started wearing their gloves and jacket liners in 02 or so) were immediately repaired. Not sure if that's a gerbings thing or HD - I have the rebadged HD stuff. Gerbings with a b&s logo on it. But I simply took them in, told them what was up ("the left sleeve doesn't warm up" was one; "the right glove doesn't work" was the other), they sent it back and it got fixed. Afaik it's a lifetime thing. And I can deal with 2 failures in 15 years. | ||
| Hughlysses |
John- if you're handy, you can find articles on making your own heated gear. Basically you string very small gage insulated wire through the vest or jacket and wire up a connector. Here's one on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2q-rD75JCs | ||
| Rparnel1 |
Been using warm-n-safe jacket, gloves, liners and socks, along with their wireless dual controller for about 5 years with no problems. | ||
| Court |
I've got Widder Electric Vest and Gauntlets. Never have a problem with either. Used them for several seasons of cold weather test riding. I'm sure I've outgrown them . . . but they served well. | ||
| Froggy |
I haven't even had my Venture Heat jacket/gloves for a month yet, so it is hard for me to give a good writeup. Also these days my commute is pretty short at around 17 minutes, so I don't even need the heat as much as I used to. Sometimes I would cheat and take the side roads home if it was too cold for my summer gear and stay under 30mph to not freeze. On my old commute which was closer to an hour, it was harder to just man up and fight through it if I was poorly equipped that day. At the show I tried on and purchased the Deluxe Jacket Liner, and the Carbon Heated Gloves. This was to replace my pair of aging Gerbing's jackets, and a set of gloves which has seen plenty of abuse over the years. One of my jackets was the older style, really thick with thick wires, the other was a newer model which was much thinner and less noticeable wires. While they were still mostly functional, it was time for a change. I was hoping to find Gerbing at the NY IMS to see their latest offerings, but either I missed them or they didn't come this year. I found Venture instead and ended up with buying their gloves and jacket liner http://www.ventureheat.com/power-sports/29-deluxe-motorcycle-heated-jacket-liner.html http://www.ventureheat.com/power-sports/44-motorcycle-heated-carbon-gloves.html My initial impressions are very good so far, the liner is super thin so it barley adds any bulk and can still fit under my smaller/tighter Aerostich. One of the things I really like about my Venture jacket is it has 3 levels of heat built right in, I don't need to use an external thermostat (which added like $50 to my Gerbing, and I also broke). To control the temperature, you just press tap the power button after turning it on, and the button changes colors between green/yellow/red to indicate which setting you are on. When I was looking at it at the show, I immediately saw what was going to be a problem. The power switch hangs at the bottom of the jacket, I told the guy working there that it is likely a deal breaker, as I wouldn't be able to manage the on/off or temperature states with it being under my one piece suit. The guy said that isn't a problem, and handed me the wireless remote that mounts to the handlebar to control it. At that point I was instantly sold, I love the challenge of having to mount more shit to my handlebars. The sales guy walked me through some of the features of their jacket, there were a lot of little things I liked about it, including that the collar has heating elements, and there is elastic in the sides in addition to the bottom to keep it fitting snug against your body. Once I got sized up for the jacket liner I moved onto the gloves, it came down to the touring or carbon models, only difference being cosmetic, so I went with the carbon design. One of the beautiful things about their gloves is that each one has a separate power button on the back, again lighting up for the three heat settings of red/yellow/green. Their heated gloves only heat the back of your hand and fingers, which is good if you have heated grips, but if you need the palm warmed you are going to have to look elsewhere. So enough about my buying experience. Other than the day I bought them, I have not had any hour or longer rides yet. The day of the IMS I got stuck in traffic and what should have taken 20 minutes ended up being almost 2 hours, but it gave me plenty of time to see how my new gloves and jacket liner worked in city conditions. To be short, they work fantastic. The connectors are the same ones used by Gerbings, so I don't need to rewire my bikes, and having the wireless remote on the handlebar makes it easier for me to quickly toggle it on or change the temperature. It gets very toasty on high, so I'm confident it will be sufficient when it gets really cold out. The gloves work great too. The index finger tips are designed to work with touchscreens, they don't work as good as a bare finger but they seem to work about as good as other touchscreen friendly gloves I tried. Good enough to safely click a large icon to launch an app or interact with a dialog box, but anything more complex I'd still pull over for. The best part of the gloves is how each one is individually controlled. You can have the clutch side one on medium, and the throttle side on low. Anyone who has a 2008+ Ulysses (or the Buell heated grip kit) will instantly see the benefit of the staggered temperature settings. Given the heat was only on the back, I don't feel my hands getting too hot even on low like I often did with my old gloves which heated the both the back and palm. Any downsides? So far nothing major, just minor quibbles. In the jacket, the controller pack is solid and not flexible, in some situations when bending over I can feel it digging into me. My Gerbings had similar issues, but on those it is just bulky connectors rather than a box doing to poking. Also, I feel the cable lengths are too short. another 2 or 3 inches of wire for each heated glove connector would be perfect in my opinion, as by time I snake the wire out from under my Aerostich, around the gauntlet, and into the plug there isn't much slack. I have enough room to move my wrist at will without obstruction, but the lack of slack takes some tugging to get it to plug into the glove. Same thing with the wire coming out the jacket, it feels shorter than the one on my Gerbings but I may be imagining this. On the Gerbing I always plugged into either a toggle switch or a thermostat so it was adding some slack that way but on the Venture those are no longer needed. I'll likely just need to reroute my plugs so I got more slack on the bike's end. So initially at least, Venture gets a thumbs up. I'll have to put more miles on it and see how it holds up to more long term abuse, but I'm optimistic. Now I have an excuse to send my Gerbings in and see if there is anything they can do to spruce them back up.  | ||
| Ourdee |
So initially at least, Venture gets a thumbs up. Whoa there. Not so fast Froggy. I gots to know. Is the thumb heated on those gloves? | ||
| Crusty |
Thanks for the report, Frank. I appreciate it. | ||
| Froggy |
Ourdee, indeed it is heated  | ||
| M1combat |
I have the tour master upper body heated jacket and it's AWESOME!!! I've ridden as low as about 29-30F and been perfectly fine on setting 4 of 5... An old tour master transitions jacket covers it. I think the best thing about it (I don't know if the others do this) is that it's temp controlled so if you stop with it cranked up it doesn't really cook you. Likewise if you set it at 25MPH and then hit the freeway it'll warm up to the max of that setting. You may need to turn it up if you go faster than when you set the temp, but you never need to turn it down when you slow down. (Message edited by M1Combat on January 09, 2017) | ||
| M1combat |
This one... http://www.tourmaster.com/inc/sdetail/electric_jac ket_liner/104/444 | ||
| Ourdee |
Nice. |
