I’d been looking for a pair of heated and waterproof gloves for a good while now – checking out the different brands like Gerbing, Bike Tec and Keis. But I finally plumped for a pair of Gerbing G3 heated gloves. Why? Probably a combination of trying a pair for size at the NEC bike show and the limited lifetime guarantee they come with that swung it.

Anyhow, I bought the G3s via the interweb and was inappropriately excited to give them a go. Thirty odd years of freezing one’s nuts off on the bike in winter does that to you I guess.

It’s pretty painless attaching them to the bike – just connect the leads to the battery terminals and try and find a reasonably clear route for the cable to poke out the side of the bike. Both terminals join together to form one wire with a weather protective rubber cap on it and have an inline fuse to protect the gloves from over charging. All you need to do is have it so it exits somewhere reasonably handy and near where you sit so you can plug the controller cable into it. With mine, it sort of tucks away near the left hand side panel when not in use, but I can fish around for a second or two and usually find it without much of a problem.

So that’s the connection to the bike done. Next you have a really long cable that connects to both gloves with a controller unit you use to turn up the temp on the gloves. From the bottom of the controller comes a single cable that plugs into the bike socket.

If you’re using the gloves alone (i.e. without their heated jacket), it’s all a bit unwieldy. The cables have to be long as they have to stretch from the battery to the end of the bars, and they’re designed to be routed through your jacket sleeves and out your arm holes. But it’s all a bit fiddly. No problem if you have a heated jacket too as it’s the jacket that plugs into the bike and the gloves just plug into sockets on the end of the arms, but used without the jacket, it’s a bit of a pain putting the jacket on and pulling the cables through then having the wiring and controller dangling round your knackers while you try and get your kit on. It’s not insurmountable in the scheme of things but in the British winter when you’ll be using the gloves, it’s just another inconvenience you can probably do without.

So, your clobbers on. Your cables are routed through your jacket. You clamber on the bike, plug the controller cable into the socket on the bike. You plug the gloves into their sockets, pull the gloves on then make sure the controller is sat snugly by your crown jewels, and we’re ready to rock. Fire up the bike.

Next step is to set the temp on the gloves. On the G3s that’s done using the controller on the cable. Since we’re using the gloves on their own, that means you have to locate the controller and look down to use it – which can be really rather dangerous on the move so best to get it done when stationary. Which is easier said than done because it’s not until you’re on the move that you really know what settings you need. However, it’s got one big button in the middle that you press to increase the heat – so nice and simple. One press, a green light flashes and it seems to do bugger all. Two presses and you get a solid green light and it’s enough to keep the chill off. Three presses and you get a weird probably-amber-but-might-be-red-light that usually needs a second glance to check – again, not good on the move. Then a fourth press is max heat. Press it again, and it turns off, and more presses cycle back round through the heat levels. All nice and simple.

So that’s sorted. We’ve chosen the temp we reckon will be OK and we’re off. But as I said, it’s really difficult to choose the right temp at the get-go so you usually end up fiddling along the way, which ain’t exactly safe. So Choose Your Moment Carefully.

And there I was on my first ride, palpably thrilled to be experiencing, for the first time in 30 years on the road, warm hands in winter. How exciting. My expectations? Somewhere between toasting my hands in front of an open fire and plunging them into a barrel of freshly warmed kittens wrapped in cotton wool. The reality is a little different.

On green (heat level 2) there was enough heat to keep the chill off. You can sense a little heat at the fingertips which is good but overall you’re left wondering if they’re actually working because all it feels like is normal gloves on a moderately cool day. Which is fine, because you can check this by turning the gloves off. This leaves you in no doubt it’s a bit parky outside and without them you’ll have a fist full of frozen sausages in no time.

But it wasn’t exactly the toasty barrel of kittens I’d been hoping for. So, I up the heat level to weird amber level 3. And that’s better. I can really feel heat at the end of the gloves now and that’s niiiiice. But I’m noticing now that there’s no heat along the palms. I didn’t notice that in the sales bumf – although come to think of it the www.gerbing.com website’s got about as much tangible and practical information as a copy of Watchtower (hadn’t uncovered the useful www.gerbing.eu site at that stage). Ditto for the instructions which come with the gloves.

After a while I reasoned that they didn’t put heating elements in the palms because you’re gripping tightly there and that might cause too much heat coming into your hands and/or lead to the elements breaking pretty quickly. All of which was fine until I also noticed that the back of my right hand had a distinct sensation of burning. Not my left – that was OK. Just my right. Uncomfortable levels of heat/pain that I could tolerate for a few minutes but after that, had to adjust it. So the remainder of that trip was spend fiddling with the controller flipping between green and weird-amber trying to find the delicate balance between not freezing both hands and not carbonising my right hand.

All of which brings me on to my next trip out. Over the Pennines, mid-winter, temp hovering just above freezing. Gloves hovering between green and weird-amber – before the heavens opened. Proper biblical levels of rain. But I was fine. I’d got my Hein Gericke waterproof leather kecks on, waterproof jacket over the leather, military gortex boots – and swanky new electric Gerbing gloves. What could possibly go wrong?

Well all was fine at first. The rain cooled the gloves down so they were pretty OK on weird-amber setting and I had a little trill of happiness that here I was in mid-winter in a monsoon and my hands were still warm. Only, 5 minutes later and everything suddenly went cold. I glanced down at the controller and there was a light on it but it was flashing blue! WTF. Dismay. Alarm. Disappointment. Cold.

Just when I thought things were going OK and I’d adjusted my expectations away from barrels of warmed kittens and toasty fires, and was reasonably (if slightly grumbly) accepting that hovering between tepid and a burning right hand was as good as it was going to get, and the bloody things pack in! Dead as a dodo.

The rest of the journey, all I had was sodden cold hands. The blue flashy light twinkled brightly at my crotch all the way home and I grumbled at it with gritted teeth.

Back at home, the Gerbing website and FAQ blissfully ignored the possibility anything could go wrong with the gloves and the instructions that came with the gloves continued to extol their ‘Bahamas in the summertime’ levels of performance.

So all I could do was contact Gerbing directly. After finding various websites that offered startlingly little information, I eventually stumbled across the www.gerbing.eu website and put in a plea for help. And, credit where credit’s due, I got immediate contact back from Gerbing’s UK Director no less. He even put in a call – but failing that dropped me an email. Top marks.

What didn’t get top marks was some of the info. I got back.

Firstly, the singeing hand. It turns out it might not have been cold enough in the UK at the time to stop the gloves cooking my hand. They apparently need enough cold air passing over the back of the hand to cool it down sufficiently. For the first ride I remember it was about 6 degrees and it turns out Gerbing don’t recommend using them above 5 degrees.

Which isn’t really what I was hoping for, or what I expected – i.e. if it’s not cold enough, they’ll burn your hands!

Onto the gloves cutting out. That turns out it was a problem with the old controller and is fixed in the new. However with a bit of pressing, asking why it cut out and what’s the reason, it turns out the blue light shows there’s not enough voltage being supplied by the bike to the controller. If it drops below 11.8v the controller cuts out and your hands get cold. All of which is fine but running a Triumph Rocket 3 without any other pulls on power than the lights and with a fresh battery that’s never caused any problem and is continually plugged into an Optimate – I’m tempted to dispute this.

However, sometimes life’s too short. Gerbing man did initially say he’d replace the controller but after subsequently working out it is in fact their latest controller, he went radio silent on that idea and I’ve not heard anything since.

So here I am with gloves that kinda work, mostly disappoint and with a feeling of a tinge of misselling. Having spent 30+ years riding bikes and freezing assorted appendages through the winter months, I’m still going to persist with heated clobber (before I possibly consign it to the great dead-end in the sky along with sidewinder sidecars and Chen Shin tyres) and if I get anywhere further I’ll update you here.

Suffice to say, in the very changeable and mostly moderate British climate, these Gerbing gloves have been, to me, a disappointment. You might have better luck with them and in a chillier part of the world, they might be a godsend. I’m lucky enough not to have tried them out in proper sub-zero temperatures as if it’s looking likely to be really icy on the roads these days, I’ll take the car. Having said that, I’m still in the market for keeping myself warm on the bike in the winter and, fool that I am, I’ll probably be persisting. If I can make it easier to use and I can adjust my expectations away from barrels of freshly toasted kittens, maybe I’ll get there in the end!