Cold Weather Gear

It's not as cold as it has been but rather than try to introduce too many new things (sidecar, dark, cold, ice, snow, etc.) at the same time, I'm not using the sidecar rig to commute yet. I still want to get additional practice miles in during daylight hours. In a couple of weeks, sunrise will be before 9 which means that it will start getting light before 8. A bit closer to my normal commute time. I think I'm almost set for these temperatures though. The only areas where I would get cold have been my hands and my face. There are no alternative face shields for my current helmet, an HJC Symax II modular, so I'm looking at my options such as a face mask or a different helmet. The problem I'm having is the face shield needs to be left cracked open all the time due to the visor frosting up.

Last Saturday, I went to Northern Power Sports, a local snow machine/motorcycle/ATV shop where I picked up the screw-in studs, and also picked up a pair of handlebar muffs. These are nylon covered thin foam which slip over the ends of the handlebar grips and controls and are held on with Velcro straps. They are kind of similar to the Hippo Hands that folks rave about but these were about ½ the cost. I think that they are stiff enough to stay open and it's very easy to get your hands in and out as the opening is pretty large. I like that I can still glance down and see the controls. The main concern is whether the wind would push hard enough on them to partially press the clutch or front brake lever while underway. If they do, then I may need to fabricate some sort of support to keep them from touching the levers. They barely fit over the handlebar mounted master cylinder reservoir. Also the bright green Arctic Cat logo doesn't match anything else on the bike.

The wellness program at the university rewards you for getting exercise and proper diet and I've had this gift card (for good behavior) from the program laying around my office for the last 6 months. I finally found something that I wanted to get with it especially since Revzilla finally has free shipping to Alaska. I ordered a pair of Gerbing G3 heated gloves. Last May, after a very cold ride to Anchorage, I had picked up a heated liner and dual controller. These gloves plug right into wiring built into the liner sleeves and the current can be set with the second knob on the controller. The gloves draw 2.2 amps max and when combined with the 6.9 amps max of the jacket liner, this could become a significant percentage of the 23 amps generated by the stock alternator.

I finally dug into the heated grip wiring after finding a wiring diagram on Snowbum's BMW site and discovered that the two wires from the switch to the grip heating elements had come out of a splice located under the speedometer housing. It was a pain to reach the connector and it looked like the splice was there to simplify removing the handlebars for servicing the bearings. It wasn't a factory style connector but had tiny screws clamping of the stripped ends of the wires. But after a lot of fiddling, the anemic heated grips are now working again though the switch only seems to now have two positions instead of the three. So I'm not sure if I lost low or high and a lighted switch would be a great addition.

I'm still trying to decide if I should drill a large opening in the right lower fairing for the front upper sidecar mount. Some BMW purists within our local Airhead group say that I should leave the lower off rather than deface it with a 1¼" hole. I'm inclined to drill the hole as the airflow would be more controlled and the bike wasn't pristine even when I bought it over five years ago.