Tourmaster heated vest with collar

[karl]

With the snow blowing outside the window here this seemed topical. My trip to Westerville, OH this year included a trip to Iron Pony with my son. Wandered through the store that is about the size of medium to large grocery store filled with motorcycle gear you can try on for fit, take out to the lot to look how it looks on your bike wow, neat. Looked at the heated gear that they carry and left with the vest.

It will be a few days before this gets to my garage and wired up to Jezabelle but I will let you know how it works for me.

The other choices they carried where all very tempting in there own way. From a purly technical standpoint the gerbing gear looked unbeatable. Perhaps if I rode more it would be worth the cost.

 

[Phil Tarman]

I had good luck with a Gerbing jacket, but their controller was not so good.

I've got a Warm'n'Safe jacket now. It puts out more heat than the Gerbing did and reports are that their controller is better. Mine is the only one I've heard of that doesn't do what it's supposed to do. It puts out heat, but doesn't let me modulate a whole lot. It's almost an on/off switch. I've ordered another one and when it gets here, will send this one back to 'em and let 'em give me a refund.

 

[elizilla]

I love Iron Pony! I used to hope to see lots of gear and try things on at the moto shows, but the gear selection there has gotten pretty deficient of late. Fortunately Iron Pony has even the best moto-show beat.

 

[BessonGuy]

I love Iron Pony! Fortunately Iron Pony has even the best moto-show beat.

I'll be hitting Iron Pony MLK weekend for the first time. Kind of an excuse to get out of town and party in a college town. Katherine should get sponsorship $$.

Don

 

[karl]

Update # 1
attached the leads to the bike started her up and got on. didn't leave the garage. Plowed the driveway this morning and it is doing a great imitation of a glacier at the moment. The vest heated up quickly and hook up was easy with just the vest on. Tonight's rain should give me a clear path to the street to give it a try.

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[karl]

This is a hot tip

Finally got the bike out with the new vest on. hard to see the led indicators in bright sunlight the buttons are easy enough to feel what you select and man is it nice. I can see this working very well at both ends of the riding season for me. Rode in mid thirty deg. weather with the sun out and had the vest on low most of the time. the old electric blanket heavy wire feel is nonexistent. there are stretch panels on both sides to hold it firmly to your body the collar insures the blood heading to your noggin does not get chilled. the vest has two plug jacks hanging inside at the left side of your belly. My jacket can zip open from the bottom so it was fairly simple to hook up it would be nice to have something outside your gear to hook up. An extension wire perhaps?
I love this so far

 

[Phil Tarman]

Plug jacks are for gloves and/or pants and/or socks probably.

I don't think we've got that much alternator capacity, but my bud on the ST wears heated gear neck to fingertip to toe.

 

[karl]

Phil I can understand that now. I was running heated grips (Honda ones) and the vest and did not notice anything untoward going on. my vest has two plugs one to the bike for power (red) and an other to continue on (black) with gloves pants insoles or socks whatever. The vest exceeded my expectations so far and durability will be the next thing to see. So far great.

 

[lerickso]

Hi Karl,

I had my NT fitted with a battery charge/cord that is located by the seat. Is that the only connection I would need to 'plug in' to all the wonderful warming devices or, it there another electrical plug I need to install? I am getting older now and the creature comforts like heated vests, etc sounds VERY nice.

Loren

 

[Phil Tarman]

Hi Karl,

I had my NT fitted with a battery charge/cord that is located by the seat. Is that the only connection I would need to 'plug in' to all the wonderful warming devices or, it there another electrical plug I need to install? I am getting older now and the creature comforts like heated vests, etc sounds VERY nice.

Loren

Loren, that plug would work. I've got my jacket wired to the battery and have a Heattroller velcroed to the side of the gas tank. Some people wear the heattroller, but I like it where I can see it. I had a heated vest that I'd gotten real cheap that just had an on/off switch. Having a "thermostat" works much better.

 

[elizilla]

Loren,

That is exactly how electric vests plug in. Two caveats, though:

1. You may find that the vest has a different type of connector than the battery tender, which means you'd need an adapter - these are easily available ready made from the vest manufacturers or companies like Powerlet, or you can roll your own with parts from Ratshack.

2. The cord for your battery charger may be undersized for a vest, with thinner wire and a smaller fuse. So you might be better off replacing it with a cord meant for a vest, and then focusing your adapter efforts on a way to plug your battery tender into your vest cord.

 

[lerickso]

Thanks, Phil. Aerostich Riderwear has their 'showroom' here in Duluth, MN so I'll be checking out some of their gear. Living in Duluth, heat is important.

Loren

 

[karl]

Hi Karl,

I had my NT fitted with a battery charge/cord that is located by the seat. Is that the only connection I would need to 'plug in' to all the wonderful warming devices or, it there another electrical plug I need to install? I am getting older now and the creature comforts like heated vests, etc sounds VERY nice.

Loren

Loren sorry that I missed you post somehow, The cable that comes with the vest along with the controller that straps to your leg have coax connecters on them. You can make your own or: http://www.whitehorsegear.com/tour-master-synergy-sae-coaxial-adapter buy one ready made to hook up your charger.
They also sell an extension cable that would allow me to unhook outside of my gear rather than having to open up the jacket to get at the connecter.

Warm and comfortable on a budget that feels rather luxurious to me... :smile:

 

[karl]

Update #2
There are some things that don't get a lot of use that are still on my indispensable list and this is one of them. Find myself wearing it to more often after I found out how nice it feels on an aching back. Weather here is getting cooler with the temps last night for example down in the high 20's. Had to scrape the frost off the seat and headlight and such for the trip home.

The cold weather coat liner rode in the saddle bag. Vest on low the grips on melt plastic and rather than asking myself what the H&*LL I was doing there my 14 mile <55 mph ride home was a lot of fun.

The kicker for me was that for one price you get everything that you need to hook it up and go riding. http://www.compacc.com/p/Tourmaster-Synergy-2-0-Electric-Vests-With-Collar A bit pricy yes, still a bargain compared to some other brands that seem to have reliability issues with the controllers that they charge you big bucks for in addition to the already expensive gear. The value of having a nice ride rather than freezing your keester off is priceless. Even in the real world were I have to reach in my own pocket this is worth the money for me.

So far maintenance consisted of wiping down the cable from the battery that lives under the seat when not in use. The cable is long enough to let me stand next to the bike plugged in or you can hook up in the saddle.

This bit of gear gets a recommend from me

 

[Phil Tarman]

My heated jacket is indispensable for me -- I carry it on the bike year 'round. In July of '10, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and then again two days later between Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Duluth, I would have been in danger of hypothermia without it. Temps were in the low-to-mid 40s and rain was bucketing down. I used a Gerbings jacket for about six years and never had any trouble with it (until it physically came apart along a seam, but that wouldn't have happened if I was a skinnier person), but I did have way too much trouble with Gerbing's controller. In fact, two of the five controllers I got from Gerbings didn't work when they were brand new.

A friend recommended Warm and Safe's Controller and it has been completely reliable. I also replaced my Gerbings jacket with a Warm and Safe jacket, which has a little more heat (95W) and fits better because of a spandex panel down each side. Like skithesierra, I've got the lead from my battery coming out between the seat and the left side of the gas tank and then have the controller mounted on the tank so I can adjust it with my left hand as I ride.

Even wearing my 'Stitch (which is not designed to be a particularly warm garment, I can be comfortable down into the teens if I put on long underwear, and into the twenties with just jeans and a shirt. The heated hand grips don't hurt any either!

 

[mikesim]

Damn you guys! I've FINALLY reconciled myself to spend the bucks for heated grips and now y'all have pretty well convinced me that I need some heated garments too. Momma is either gonna shoot me or I'm gonna have to get a part-time job to pay for all the farkles on my wish list... what to do.... what to do...

;^)

Mike

 

[Phil Tarman]

Momma is either gonna shoot me or I'm gonna have to get a part-time job to pay for all the farkles on my wish list... what to do.... what to do...

Mike, buy it all quick in one swell foop and then beg forgiveness and promise future abstinence. If you've got it all, it won't hurt not to buy anything.

 

[karl]

This was my Christmas gift to Myself last year. My bike would be parked much more without it. That would suck.

 

[Phil Tarman]

Karl, that's the truth about our bikes being parked more without the heated gear. I used to wear about five or six layers under my 'Stitch. I could hardly move and probably wasn't too safe in that basically immobile cocoon. And I still got really, really cold. I remember leaving here at 4:30 one October Friday morning when the temperature was 26F. 60 miles down the road it had dropped to 21F and stayed there for the first 260 miles of a Bun Burner 1500. My riding partner had heated socks and gloves; I didn't even have heated grips. We got to Trinidad, CO, and stopped for an hour and half for breakfast and warming up. The next night from Great Bend to Plainville, KS, it got to 19F. And as the day warmed up (both days) got close to 70F, we had to stop more than once to remove a layer.

Sure is nice to just be able to turn a knob to adjust temperature!

 

[mikesim]

Mike, buy it all quick in one swell foop and then beg forgiveness and promise future abstinence. If you've got it all, it won't hurt not to buy anything.

Yeah.... I've always found that it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission...

;^)

Mike