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Human Popsicle Season Gear Advice?

I have a big windscreen on my HS plus the OEM hand guards and I miss those things very much when I ride the little Suzuki which has neither. Especially when it is damp or raining and my gloves start soaking in the dampness. When I feel like roughing it I can always go ride that thing. For now my concern is continuing to commute through the winter without getting hypothermia. I have a much longer commute now (70-90 mins depending on mass-stupidity) and no option to take the train anymore. I bought a little beater cage for my new job but after 5 years not driving one I cannot stand driving the thing. It's like trying to run in a swimming pool and it just pisses me off and gives me road rage.

I had to drive it today because it was 31 degrees and foggy this morning and I really don't like to ride with reduced visibility, it just compounds an already bad problem. Tomorrow it's going to be pouring rain in the early morning and in the early evening when I get off work. I wish I had this new gear now so I wouldn't have to drive the beater again tomorrow too.
 
Aerostich!

1) look like a dork
2) windproof
3) waterproof
4) keeps your skin on
5) layer as needed.

I have an R3 light since it doesn't get that cold in Sac, but we get rain in buckets. I've been the only moto on my commute bunches and ridden through rain and wind that is as exhilarating as it is stupid. The lined version should do you in cold.

Expensive though.
 
good choices

Love those Gore tex Deserts. $180!!! super cheap! not a fan of the First Gear Glove liners .. too thick. The First Gear heated gear not rated that high. Prefer latest heated gear from
Cycle Gear. I love my new Hotwired heated jacket .. and comes WITH a three way controller ... all for $180 and great warranty.

Socks and Balaclava look fine. Heated gloves are the go for cold hands. I spend an additional Hotwired item, the heated gloves. $159. Not really tested the gloves in anger yet, I'm hopeful. The Hyper has a strong charging system, it can handle it powering all this elec. gear. Not all bikes can.

You never said WHAT Suzuki you have or how many Watts it puts out. ???

I've ridden in some cold temps on cross country tours. Arizona in December, North rim of Grand Canyon was 10F around Vermillion cliffs. Got a motel, brought battery inside to charge over night. Got down to Zero. Had to wait until 11am next day to depart ... too icy and bloody cold. This in the 1980's riding BMW R100RS. Terrible electrics would hardly power my old Widder Vest .. but it did help. I headed South sharp-ish from there. Was in the mid 70's around L.A.

philthymike said:
Here's my list so far. Any opinions on these choices welcome and appreciated.
  1. https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/tcx-x-desert-gore-tex-boots
  2. https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/firstgear-heated-glove-liners
  3. https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/firstgear-heated-jacket-liner
  4. https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/firstgear-remote-dual-heat-troller
  5. https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/firstgear-ht-overpants-shell
  6. https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/alpinestars-corozal-drystar-gloves
  7. https://www.revzilla.com/snow/arctiva-insulator-socks
  8. https://www.revzilla.com/snow/arctiva-neckwarmer-balaclava
Click to expand...
 
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Devinjc said:
Aerostich!

1) look like a dork
2) windproof
3) waterproof
4) keeps your skin on
5) layer as needed.

I have an R3 light since it doesn't get that cold in Sac, but we get rain in buckets. I've been the only moto on my commute bunches and ridden through rain and wind that is as exhilarating as it is stupid. The lined version should do you in cold.

Expensive though.
Click to expand...
Yes, expensive but probably the best and most convenient for guys who have to wear nice clothes at work and don't have the time to screw around changing.
The Aerostich is perfect ... just slip it over your nice work clothes and GO! Less than a minute ON or OFF.
Add a heated liner, good to go down to freezing. Fast and easy. Very popular here in the Bay area ... in fact most of the guys I've ridden with for decades use Aerostich as primary riding gear ... even year round.

I would own an Aerostich if I didn't already have lots of good gear options. Once it's all worn out ... I'll look at a "stitch" again. I owned one, got stolen at a bar (Zeitgeist!)
 
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Hyp Noob said:
Love those Gore tex Deserts. $180!!! super cheap! not a fan of the First Gear Glove liners .. too thick. The First Gear heated gear not rated that high. Prefer latest heated gear from
Cycle Gear. I love my new Hotwired heated jacket .. and comes WITH a three way controller ... all for $180 and great warranty.

Socks and Balaclava look fine. Heated gloves are the go for cold hands. I spend an additional Hotwired item, the heated gloves. $159. Not really tested the gloves in anger yet, I'm hopeful. The Hyper has a strong charging system, it can handle it powering all this elec. gear. Not all bikes can.

You never said WHAT Suzuki you have or how many Watts it puts out. ???

I've ridden in some cold temps on cross country tours. Arizona in December, North rim of Grand Canyon was 10F around Vermillion cliffs. Got a motel, brought battery inside to charge over night. Got down to Zero. Had to wait until 11am next day to depart ... too icy and bloody cold. This in the 1980's riding BMW R100RS. Terrible electrics would hardly power my old Widder Vest .. but it did help. I headed South sharp-ish from there. Was in the mid 70's around L.A.
Click to expand...

I have all the gear in hand. The Alpinestars gloves are very impressive in their construction and comfort but unfortunately do not fit over the heated liners.

The boots are surprisingly comfortable too. Not the most heavily constructed I've seen but $180 for Goretex is damn good deal regardless.

The over pants seem to be of decent quality too. Seems like they should have costed more than they did.

After I break these items in and start riding with them I'm sure I'll see the real worth.

I have a Suzuki Savage. Its stator is rated for 210 Watts. Of that the bike needs like 200 in order to run and charge the battery. There's no extra capacity. Even with LED lighting you can't get enough juice for heated gear. I have read of many attempts on the Suzuki Savage forum. The best advice in one thread was to put a propellor driven generator on your helmet.
Most accounts of adding even modest power accessories end with the battery slowly dying over the course of a ride.
Some years ago there was a high output stator available on the aftermarket but its apparently been discontinued.

SO anyway this weekend I'll have to ride to Revzilla and exchange the gloves. I'll bring the liners with me to ensure I find a size that fits over them properly.
 
Hey Mike,
If going with liners vs. elec. gloves then what you need are SILK liners. Thin and effective under a nice thick Winter glove. I tried the First Gear ones ... not good for most of my gloves. I could get gloves over them but the feel was too numb to ride the bike well. YMMV.

Your Savage has the SAME 650cc engine as my DR650. Stator output on the DR650 is 200 Watts. You are sort of correct on limited ability to power gear. It will not do a good job with a 90 Watt elec. Jacket but can be done. Your Savage, like the DR650, only needs about 120 watts to run ... so about 80W left over.

HOWEVER ... I've run my Gerbing (77W) for 10 years on my DR650) Ran the Batt dead several times before making changes: adding HID headlight kit, LED tail light bulb.

With an HID headlight bulb (draws 35W), I can run my 77W Gerbing and heated grips (22W) all day on my DR650 and battery holds a charge enough to re-start ... but things don't get as warm as they should.

In 60K miles on my DR650 I'm quite familiar with this issue ... as are the thousands of riders on HUGE thread on ADV Rider. (25 million views!) Everything DR related is there and much of that info should cross over to your Savage.

I'm also pretty sure you can buy the high output Stator from ProCycle that will fit your Savage ... but check with Jeff the owner to be sure. Very helpful. You gain 50W with that Stator ... so with a HID kit ... you could run low draw heated gear.

In day time I shut my headlight OFF on deserted back roads and off road. "Always On" Headlight law NOT enforced in CA and usually not in any western states I've ridden my DR through sans headlight. (Oregon, Idaho, AZ, Nev)

At night if it gets super cold I'm in trouble below 40F or so. I hardly feel the Gerbing. Good news is my new HotWired Jacket is SO MUCH WARMER than old Gerbing.

I think with headlight OFF on my DR it will power Hotwired jacket fine ... and not run down battery too far. Like the Hyper, all my bikes on Battery Tenders all the time at home and I even carry a tiny Yuasa Charger on long trips to charge up on the road if needed. Awesome!

All your gear sounds great ... hope it all works out! Ride Safe! Stay Warm!
 
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Hyp Noob said:
Hey Mike,
If going with liners vs. elec. gloves then what you need are SILK liners. Thin and effective under a nice thick Winter glove. I tried the First Gear ones ... not good for most of my gloves. I could get gloves over them but the feel was too numb to ride the bike well. YMMV.

Your Savage has the SAME 650cc engine as my DR650. Stator output on the DR650 is 200 Watts. You are sort of correct on limited ability to power gear. It will not do a good job with a 90 Watt elec. Jacket but can be done. Your Savage, like the DR650, only needs about 120 watts to run ... so about 80W left over.

HOWEVER ... I've run my Gerbing (77W) for 10 years on my DR650) Ran the Batt dead several times before making changes: adding HID headlight kit, LED tail light bulb.

With an HID headlight bulb (draws 35W), I can run my 77W Gerbing and heated grips (22W) all day on my DR650 and battery holds a charge enough to re-start ... but things don't get as warm as they should.

In 60K miles on my DR650 I'm quite familiar with this issue ... as are the thousands of riders on HUGE thread on ADV Rider. (25 million views!) Everything DR related is there and much of that info should cross over to your Savage.

I'm also pretty sure you can buy the high output Stator from ProCycle that will fit your Savage ... but check with Jeff the owner to be sure. Very helpful. You gain 50W with that Stator ... so with a HID kit ... you could run low draw heated gear.

In day time I shut my headlight OFF on deserted back roads and off road. "Always On" Headlight law NOT enforced in CA and usually not in any western states I've ridden my DR through sans headlight. (Oregon, Idaho, AZ, Nev)

At night if it gets super cold I'm in trouble below 40F or so. I hardly feel the Gerbing. Good news is my new HotWired Jacket is SO MUCH WARMER than old Gerbing.

I think with headlight OFF on my DR it will power Hotwired jacket fine ... and not run down battery too far. Like the Hyper, all my bikes on Battery Tenders all the time at home and I even carry a tiny Yuasa Charger on long trips to charge up on the road if needed. Awesome!

All your gear sounds great ... hope it all works out! Ride Safe! Stay Warm!
Click to expand...
Hey Hype

I'll have too look into that ProCycle stator. If there's one to be had then I'd definitely like one. Would love to put some driving lights on the little bruiser too if I could.
I thought a big problem with the savage is the regulator. If you remove load from it then the voltage goes too high causing problems like overcharging the battery and making solenoids and relays burn out prematurely. I read it's a very crude device and people are always looking to retrofit regulators from other bikes to prevent having these problems once they start adding electric accessories and putting in LED lighting and such.

I keep my bikes in a rented garage down the block and it doesn't have electric so I cannot put a tender on them. It kinda sucks too since I can't work on the bikes after dark.

I didn't expect the first gear glove liner to be so thick. I may have to consider something else. The jacket liner is a perfect fit for my regular riding jacket though. I'm very pleased with this.

I have yet to try either of them. I need to wire the controller and receiver into the bike. And I'm still waiting for my coat to dry from Tuesday when i got caught in the rain coming home. Got a good soaking but it was 60 degrees so I really didn't mind.

Stay safe and warm too man!
 
Quote:
I keep my bikes in a rented garage down the block and it doesn't have electric so I cannot put a tender on them. It kinda sucks too since I can't work on the bikes after dark.

Why not get a headlamp? I used to use trouble lights when working on the bikes at night, but found a headlamp is far better. Yet another use for my caving gear, lol.
 
philthymike said:
Hey Hype

I'll have too look into that ProCycle stator. If there's one to be had then I'd definitely like one. Would love to put some driving lights on the little bruiser too if I could.

I thought a big problem with the savage is the regulator. If you remove load from it then the voltage goes too high causing problems like overcharging the battery and making solenoids and relays burn out prematurely. I read it's a very crude device and people are always looking to retrofit regulators from other bikes to prevent having these problems once they start adding electric accessories and putting in LED lighting and such.

I keep my bikes in a rented garage down the block and it doesn't have electric so I cannot put a tender on them. It kinda sucks too since I can't work on the bikes after dark.

I didn't expect the first gear glove liner to be so thick. I may have to consider something else. The jacket liner is a perfect fit for my regular riding jacket though. I'm very pleased with this.

I have yet to try either of them. I need to wire the controller and receiver into the bike. And I'm still waiting for my coat to dry from Tuesday when i got caught in the rain coming home. Got a good soaking but it was 60 degrees so I really didn't mind.

Stay safe and warm too man!
Click to expand...
I've never had a problem with the stock Regulator/Rectifier on my DR650. I'm betting your Savage uses the SAME Denso unit. Yes, basic, crude ... but VERY effective and PROVEN.

There are alternatives and upgrades to stock R/R I've heard about. Not common that I remember on the BIG DR650 forums. Not many mentioned this topic much.

The location of R/R is whats most important when "shunting" excess voltage. Needs Air Flow! My R/R never seems to heat up much beyond warm ... even running with headlight OFF and using NO accessories all day. Not an issue.

The charging system on my DR has been FLAWLESS since new. NO issues despite running battery dead numerous times.

Did you know that on the DR650 (and probably on your Savage as well) you can BUMP START your bike even when Batt is nearly dead?

But the DR will not start with 100% DEAD battery or battery removed from bike. But even with just 7 or 8V ... you can bump start her right up! Love it!
(try that on an F.I. bike! :()

Mostly it's about keeping a FRESH and STONG battery in the bike ... if it gets run down ... just riding it will bring it right back up in 20 minutes riding. I've done this NUMEROUS times! :roll eyes:

Maybe you can run an extension cord into your storage shed? From ...???
Friendly neighbor?
 
I tried my new gear out today. I rode for 2 hours in 35 degrees with gusty wind.
Both highway and local streets. On the highway I rode up to 90mph where I could for a spell.
That balaclava was crap. I would have been better off with my $4.99 cheapo fleece head mask I got on Amazon.
The heated glove liners had to come off after 20 minutes. Way too tight inside the new gloves and weren't all that warm either. In fact I was fine the rest of the ride with just the new gloves as they are surprisingly warm. I'm returning the heated liners and getting some silk ones as suggested before.

The boots worked fine. I just had regular boots socks on, not the thermal ones I ordered, and my feet stayed warm and dry.

The over pants worked great. Kept out the wind and water. I made sure to ride through puddles to see if splash got in and it didn't. What a relief to not have frozen knees. and putting them on and getting them off was fast and convenient.

The star of the show was the heated jacket liner. I wore a cotton thermo shirt, the liner and my riding jacket with its cold weather liner and I could care less about the conditions even at 90+ with strong headwinds gusting me all over the highway. Stayed perfectly toasty warm. Getting off the highway I became uncomfortably warm but it was a simple matter to pull the remote out of my pocket at a stop light and crank down the heat level.

So 2 hours out in the cold and the only thing cold was my face.

For giggles I rode my HS through a snowy field. I did fine as long as I kept the momentum going. Starting out from a stop resulted in quite a lot of excess wheel spin but I managed to get it going again.
 

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appliance821 said:
I'd get bigger gloves.
Click to expand...

I really like the gloves I got except the fact the liners won't fit. I'm keeping the gloves. Maybe I'll just get the cheapest pair I can get in a larger size to use with the liners.

So, day two of my weekly commute with new gear and I'm still pretty comfy despite the 33 degrees with high winds coming home tonight. Still just the new gloves by themselves - no liner. My finger tips on my right hand were hurting a little by the time I got back. It was a mass-stupidity level high day on my roads so I was out there a good hour and 45 minutes. Everything else stayed very nice and warm. I'm back to my cheapo headsock dealie and it does the job fine except having to open my helmet shield at long stop and crawl sessions so as not to fog it up. The jacket liner was set a bit higher today considering the drop in temperature and I was very warm. Too much so when things slowed down. Again, remote heat control to the rescue.

The boots are fine. They have begun breaking in and are much more comfortable to walk in. But I am not happy with the size of the toe box and the fact I cannot feel the shifter anymore.
I'll try adjusting the shifter and see if that helps. But they are warm boots anyways and they keep my feet at a good temperature with a single pair of regular socks on.

So far so good....
 
You'll get used to the big toe box. I always ride in adv boots - I like the protection and the look - you start to get a feel for them and the levers.

For sure pick up some closeout gloves in a larger size. They can become your rain and cold gloves and they'll save the nice ones from getting old before their time. Cortech makes nice gloves at a fair price:Cortech by Tour Master Impulse RR Gloves :: MotorcycleGear.com
 
So after another week of commuting with this gear on progressively colder crappier weather I am still pretty happy with my choices. The boots are breaking in nicely and are fairly comfortable now. I thought that would take longer.
I'm still getting used to the bulkiness of the toe box. It makes finding neutral a bit trickier than it already was. I still haven't gotten the silk liners for the gloves so my hands are getting cold again with the dropping temps. Need to bump them to the top of my todo list but still I'm not getting numb with them on.

The jacket liner is great! Last night was below freezing coming home so I cranked the heat control up to 3/4 and was really nice and toasty even at 80/90 mph. This thing was worth the money.
 
Update: All the above mentioned gear is now being put through its second winter and has held up nicely. I didn’t have to replace any of it this season.

The silk glove liners have worked out well BTW.
 
philthymike said:
So after another week of commuting with this gear on progressively colder crappier weather I am still pretty happy with my choices. The boots are breaking in nicely and are fairly comfortable now. I thought that would take longer.
I'm still getting used to the bulkiness of the toe box. It makes finding neutral a bit trickier than it already was. I still haven't gotten the silk liners for the gloves so my hands are getting cold again with the dropping temps. Need to bump them to the top of my todo list but still I'm not getting numb with them on.

The jacket liner is great! Last night was below freezing coming home so I cranked the heat control up to 3/4 and was really nice and toasty even at 80/90 mph. This thing was worth the money.
Click to expand...

Sweet isn't it. I also got electric glove liners and I'm toasty. Here, they spread the salt on pretty thick, so the bike is off the road. A month or 2!
 
appliance821 said:
Sweet isn't it. I also got electric glove liners and I'm toasty. Here, they spread the salt on pretty thick, so the bike is off the road. A month or 2!
Click to expand...

The salt is such a nuisance. Last week while riding my Savage out on route 82 in bumblefuck-land on my way to Reading PA I came upon a steep windy hill doing about 55 and near the top in a sharp curve to the right the sand/salt was a good 1/2" deep. The bike went sideways on me and I had to do the flat tracker foot drag to keep from going down. The slide took me into the oncoming lane and there were cagers coming at me head on. Suddenly the tires gripped again and in reaction the bike stood back up violently and I had to catch the rebound with my other foot. Just in time I managed to get it pointed at the shoulder on the oncoming side and came to a stop in it. It was a short shoulder so I was still partially in the roadway but luckily the cagers veered around me honking their horns.

The good thing here is that I've had plenty of slidey mishaps with the Savage because of its rear drum brake to the point that the way it slides has become predictable to me. If I was on the HS that day the outcome might have been different. The few times she's slid out on me it was far from predictable or controllable because it happens so fast.

The rest of the ride up 82 I did my best to warn the oncoming bike riders about the slippery roads behind me.
 
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