I have a 90 GS stock with normal headlight bulb and other other lightnings .......Planning to buy heated vest/jacket or gloves for winter.The power consumption of the vest am interested draws 3.5 amps and 45watt rating and gloves i guess will be around same rating.I am not sure the bike charging system/battery would be able to handle this.
How will it affect battery or bike performance
need advice on which heated jacket works best/economical ,the temperature where i ride mostly(North Louisiana) will be around 50F in winter
Jacket size M/L
Glove size M/L needed
Manoj
At 50 degrees you might be ok with just heated grips.
I know people here have installed them successfully on the gs.
50F ?!! I oughtta smack you(just kidding!).
Get a jacket liner and good gloves and you should be fine. I used to have my old ninja 250 wired up to take heated chaps, gloves and a vest, so I would hope the gs could handle it. My last bike had heated grips and they were probably the best thing you can do to a motorcycle, although they don't help much in cold weather because you have to wear thin enough gloves for the heat to get through, so it's a game of hoping the inside of your hands is warm enough to keep your hands from going numb from all the cold air hitting the back side while you're riding, that's all below your 50 degree winters though. They're mostly convenient when you're out riding, and the midnight ride home just happens to be a few degrees cooler than you planned on.
i had the same reaction as these guys when i saw 50 degrees. whoa! that's still not too bad to ride in methinks. it was 58 degrees just this morning!
anyhow, you also might want to look into handguards http://wiki.gstwins.com/index.php?n=Upgrades.Handguards. after getting that cold wind off your hands, you'll be glad you got them!
cheers,
~drin
It's 55 here as we speak, I'm only 5 degrees away from a Louisiana winter and my summer just ended a week or two ago.
http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/15224
I was wrong the temp does fall below 30F in the peak..........................
manoj
I have an electric vest on my GS. It draws around 3A. I was also thinking of adding heated grips and looked into the electrical demands of running both. If I remember right, it was marginal. I think it would be ok if you kept the revs up. If you're idling a lot, your battery would slowly get drained.
Overpants, a jacket with liner, fog-proof face shield, balaclava, good wind-proof boots and cold weather gloves will be good down to ~35.
Here is my winter set up:
Alpinestars dry star Vega gloves
Cortech GX Series 2 jacket (with liner in)
Tourmaster Venture pants
Sidi B2 Boots
Fog City face shield insert in helmet
Generic balaclava from Richard's Sporting Goods.
The only thing is your hands will get cold after ~30 minutes. I'm looking into getting VStrom 650 hand guards this year - then I think I'll have no problems :icon_mrgreen:.
Quote from: NF11624 on September 29, 2009, 05:21:27 PM
Overpants, a jacket with liner, fog-proof face shield, balaclava, good wind-proof boots and cold weather gloves will be good down to ~35.
The only thing is your hands will get cold after ~30 minutes. I'm looking into getting VStrom 650 hand guards this year - then I think I'll have no problems :icon_mrgreen:.
Even better than just windproof, is water proof. Nothing like a little freezing rain when it's 33 degrees out. Anyway, I think the best extra piece of gear you can keep with you is a balaclava. It doesn't have to be thick at all, just enough to block some of the wind. I've tried a couple of the guards that keep wind out of your helmet, and it just makes it fog up worse.
I tried handguards on a bike once, and I couldn't get them to do anything, my fingers were still freezing, but enough people have tried them and say that work that I'd probably be willing to try it again. Maybe mine were just shaped goofy.
50 degrees? thats about the temp I zip the liner back into my jacket, lol I have seen higher output stators on ebay, but never used one, and havent seen one for awhile.