Keep comfortable on those cool morning or frigid night rides. Warm hands have a major impact on overall body comfort, and sometimes gloves just aren't enough.
- Nostalgic solid rubber design
- Thermostatically controlled grips have variable heat settings and automatic temperature monitoring to adjust to changing ambient temperature
- Grips remain at a constant temperature regardless of changes in outside temperature
- Self-contained control circuit and control knob means you have no additional switches or controller boxes to mount
- Shut on/off with ignition to avoid draining battery
- Glueless grip design allows grip removal if you change handlebars or motorcycles
Nostalgic Heated Hand Grips is rated
5.0 out of
5 by
1.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
geekonabike from
Does the job: toasty hands. Not for Antarctica.
I bought these about a month ago for my 2006 XL883, and have very much enjoyed using them since.
I ride a naked Sporty, so my hands are out there in the wind. I like my gauntlet gloves thin enough for control and grip, so they don't slide off my buckhorn bars.
Regardless of the gloves, these heated grips can make a huge difference in comfort, and how low are the temps I can ride in before my rather sensitive-to-cold hands can't tolerate it anymore. At high speeds and lower temps the backs of my hands still feel some chill, and the backs of my thumbs are particularly vulnerable, but I can attempt much longer rides in lower temps than before, so they do the job within reasonable conditions. When they're in their element they really do keep the hands toasty.
On a naked bike like mine, they seem best for temperatures in the 50's and above if you're riding any distance, though they are a welcomed improvement in any cold weather. Much lower than that and I'd suggest also adding something to keep the wind off your gloves, like a wide touring windscreen. You're only getting heat to one side of your hands so don't expect them to keep your whole hands warm in sub-zero weather riding down the interstate, without added wind protection. A friend has heated grips on his Ultra, but has enough wind protection he doesn't need to turn on the grips until it's really cold, and then the combination of grips and wind protection makes him quite the cold-weather rider.
I've never bought an accessory--mechanical or ergonomic--from Harley-Davidson that wasn't very high quality, and from what I can tell this is no exception. You get what you pay for. The grips are just like the nostalgia grips I had before, and loved because I have long hands that like to wrap bigger grips, and I like a rubbery grip rather than a metallic one. The thermostat works well, being a continuous rheostat apparently that takes some effort to turn, with numbers to six. So far it hasn't overtaxed my charging system, looking at the way the bike starts and the lights on the battery tender. I will say that maybe they run hotter when the motor is spinning faster on my bike, but it's hard to say for sure. That would mean they're hotter when the bike's moving faster--a good thing!
I admit the lengthy file of instructions inspired me to punt and have an H-D mechanic put them on, and he said it really wasn't that big of a deal but the instructions had to anticipate contingencies.
Date published: 2014-01-30