| Author | Message | ||
     Reepicheep |
I now have five things working together on my Uly, and had a dry 60 mile ride at 31 degrees this morning. I was reasonably comfortable the entire time. I could have ridden quite a bit further, no problem at all. Here is my recipe... 1) First Gear Kilamanjaro Air jacket with insulating liner, and First Gear pants with liner. This is my year round riding gear, I just pull out the liners in the summer. I've been running this setup for several years (on my 2nd First Gear jacket). $250 to $500 worth of gear depending on if you get it on sale or not... but it's good year round gear so its not just $$ for winter riding. 2) Polly heater cartridges (the snowmobile ones) with my custom closed loop digital thermostat controller. $19 for the heaters, $10 worth of parts for the controller, and about a 200 man hours of development for the controller (but you don't have to do that). Ive been running this setup all winter and it is now very nicely dialed in (after moving the thermistor off the board and against the bars about 2"-3" from the heating element). 3) (New to me) Lee Parks PCi touring gloves. These caught my eye because they claim to do something I kept thinking that somebody ought to build a glove to do... which is take heat off the heated grip, and distribute it around the inside of the glove, but still insulate from the outside. So palms that transfer the heat well, but good insulation elsewhere. These were pricy at $125, but BOY are they nice gloves... I bought them as winter gloves, but like them just as gloves. They claim a "phase change" material that will store heat. I get the physics, and they are sound, I don't know if that part of the glove is a gimmick or a real difference. I do know the gloves work really well... not at all bulky, but very warm. I have another set of summer gloves (fieldshear), but I'm looking forward to wearing them out so I can get some lee parks summer gloves as well and switch between. gloves  4) Aluminum barkbuster bars I found on Amazon. I was dubious when I got these, as they were cheap. Packaging was bad and they were a little beat up when they got to me (very minor) but they are solid and nicely made. The goal of these was protection from wrecks / debris in the summer, and a framework for something better in the winter. $25 plus another $11 or so shipping. They fit up great, though you have to have your levers pointed down a bit (or trimmed). And obviously, you cant have bar end mirrors. I also choose to trim two bolts to make more room for the cartridge heaters inside the bars. These are not big enough to block air for winter riding, which I consider a good thing. The factory guards were bigger, but were still too small to help in the winter, but still big enough to be to warm in the summer. IMHO. So I want debris / frisbee hubcap / slide with the bike hand protection from them, not wind protection. aluminum guards   5) Moose Utility Division (  ) molded foam handguards. These use the skeleton of the bark busters for support, and add the serious wind blocking. I had to drill two small holes in the plastic guards over the bark busters (above) so I could use a cable tie to tack down the outside ends. This further anchors them, and also "flares them out" for more clearance on the levers. I didn't have to trim the levers for this to work, but I probably will, it's silly for them to be so long anyway. $23 plus $8 or something shipping. They go on and off in under two minutes, and would store flat in a side bag. Not what you call a subtle install, but I like the redneck look on a Uly. And the "Moose Utility Division" logo makes me smile. foam guards  If I leave the cost of the gloves, jacket, and pants out (which I will use with or without cold winter riding), I'm into this for under $100 or so, and have a pretty good result. I was colder walking from the bike to my desk (after taking off a glove to remove my helmet) than I was at 70 mph on I-75 for 30 minutes. So anyway, just some ideas. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. For the money, real heated gear would also make sense and probably work better, but I don't like to have to wire into and out of the bike, and worry expensive gloves and jackets with constantly flexing electrical parts would wear out more often than I would want to pay to replace them. I think the passive parts will wear better and give me more flexibility and be less invasive in the long term. (Message edited by reepicheep on April 05, 2012) | ||
| Littlebuggles |
Hey Reep, nice write up, thanks! Are you still running the low (stock height) shield, and how tall are you? I just purchased an 08 Uly and want to run the tinted shield but am uncertain how it will work out for cold riding. I'm 5'10" with 32" inseam for reference. -Mike |
