The heat is on

Macna Ion electrically heated gloves

Do I need heated gloves? I hate having cold fingers when riding and from years of racing two-stroke vibes, I am certainly susceptible to winter chills; in fact I have trouble feeling the front brake when my figures are cold.

After a bit of research, the toss up between heated handlebar grips or heated gloves was the decision to be made. I’ve experienced heated grips before, but although the inside of your hands may be warm, the thought of heated fingers all over directed the thought process. Macna Ion battery-powered heated gloves seemed to be the solution. The gloves are reasonably substantial winter goat leather with a fixed Raintex water-resistant membrane lining.

They can be bought in two different forms:

1. The “battery” gloves kit which comes with two joined rechargeable 7.4 volt, 3000Ah lithium ion batteries per glove. The batteries are charged from the supplied 240v mains charger and takes about

6 hours to charge them fully. $399.95 recommended retail.

2. The “hard-wired” kit, $299.95 rr, without batteries, needs both a 750mm fused Bike Connection Cable, $39.95 rr, (connects directly across the battery terminals) and a further 1500mm of split Extension Cable, $29.95 rr. To complete the connection to the gloves

I installed the hard-wiring kit but found I only needed to use it once on my recent seven-day tour. On an 8-hour day ride from Orbost, Victoria to Gundagai, NSW across the Snowy Mountains, the battery kit was quite adequate. Surprisingly, minimal use of the externally adjustable, 4-heat level gloves with batteries, in combination with the already comfortable winter lined gloves, was quite enough to ward off the near-zero degree chills without resorting to the hardwired optional connections. The batteries were claimed to last 6 hours on their low setting and 2 hours on maximum heat. I found the lower 2 heat levels were enough to keep the fingers, not toasty but certainly far from chilly.