When my bike had heated grips I wore heavy insulated gloves. I still felt the heat thru the gloves and my whole hand kept warm. Not just the palm. I can see the back of your hand getting cold with light weight gloves, if you don't have the right wind protection. 25 years of winter riding has taught me you need to have heavy gloves with you in case your heated grips or gloves crap out on you.,,

 

I actually made a bracket for the controller that mounts under the front of my seat that extends up onto the base of the fuel tank and puts the controller a few inches below my fuel door/cap. Not unlike the OL, when I wanna get warm/hot, I just reach between my legs! Seriously though, I always thought that having the controller inside of my clothing would make it harder to adjust on the fly. The bracket makes it really easy to get to.

 

Lots of different opinions on this thread. Here's my take, from living in one of the coldest states. Even in the summer, we often have temps in the upper 40's in the early morning, and temps in the afternoon in the 80's and 90's. This morning, as an example, we had 30 degrees at 7:00 am, at noon, now, it's 47, and we are looking at a sunny high of 65 this afternoon.

Heated grips are great because you always have them with. Provided they still work. HD's don't have the best track record, and they only warm one side of your hand.

Heated gloves are great, because they warm both sides of your hand/fingers. Probably not so important if you are riding behind a fairing, where your hands are protected from the wind. Gerbing gloves are waterproof....that is why they sometimes don't work so well...the body moisture is trapped in, just like rain moisture is trapped out. I just recently started keeping the gloves and their "Y" leads on the bike at all times, just in case I need them.

Keeping your body core warm will make your hands and feet warm also. I wear my heated jacket liner way before I worry about plugging in the gloves.

The glove leads in Gerbings jacket liners are way to short, making it difficult to plug in the gloves after you put your leathers on over the liner. Once plugged in, if you stop, you will have your gloves flopping around on the end of your arms because you don't want to unplug them and go through the hassle of plugging them in again. You have no such hassle with heated grips.

If you've got long legs, you will find the cold wind between the HD upper and lower fairings will hit you squarely in the knees. Heated pants takes care of that problem, but now you have another layer of clothing to put on, and to deal with when the temperature rises. Heated overpants take up a lot of storage room once you take them off, and heated pants liners are a pain to take on and off, and less you want to strip down to your skivvies in a parking lot to take them off.

The total solution to the above is not to ride for about seven months out of the year.

That is not an option, so we deal with the problems of heated gear or bulky layers of clothing.

I currently use a Gerbings jacket liner, Gerbings Union Ridge overpants (no longer available), Gerbings heated gloves, and a dual controller. I stuck on a piece of Velcro on the back of the controller and stick it to the Velcro on the left pocket of my overpants. If I'm not wearing the overpants I set the controller and keep it in the left pocket of my leather coat. My battery lead comes up under the seat at the tail of my gas tank, where I can easily plug and unplug the main lead to the controller.

My lady has her lead coming up behind the driver back rest. She has a Gerbings jacket liner and pants liner.

 

If I still rode year round out of necessity heated grips and these.

http://www.hippohands.com/HIPPO%20HANDS.htm

I had an 83 Goldwing, no heated grips but I engineered a set of 10 watt "heaters" (radio shack ceramic power handling resistors), clamped them to the bars with a homemade set of brackets and slipped a a set of Hippo hands over the whole affair. Rain, snow, sleet, 15 degree temps it didn't matter I could wear a pair of cotton jersey gloves. My regular winter gloves stayed in the tour pack because they were too hot with that set up.

As to the heat demons they don't warm nearly as well as the Harley grips. There were no heated grips for the 09 CVO Fat Bob my wife rides when I was going to do hers, I see they now have a set, so I went with the heat demons. She says it helps but compared to the heated grips the output is poor and it takes a long time to get warm. Now that HD is offering a grip compatible with the older cable throttle I will change her's out before it gets cold.

As to the heated grip track record I had the set on my street glide for almost 2 years and about 30K miles and never once had an issue, but I did the install not the dealer and I am a little OCD about good solid electrical connections. I just put a pair of the new airflow heated grips on my rode glide ultra the heat distribution seems to be more even across the new redesigned grips.

 

There was a time when being a biker was just man and machine-dress was added as needed, but usually layered. (sweatshirts, long johns, wool socks)
Now with all the gee-gaw frue frue junk, they've become something short of a car without doors or a roof...

 

I have heavy duty wind and waterproof gloves and as long as my hands are warm it all works well with just heated grips. When my hands are cold before I put the gloves on, and turn on the heated grips, they just never make it to warm with just the grips. It's that palm vs backside of the hand thing again.


Before I bought heated gloves and a jacket liner, I could put on layer after layer after layer and still be shaking cold. One winter I had on 7 layers on and still couldn't stop shaking. I was about 85 miles from home and I said that would be the last time that would ever happen.
I rode last winter at 14 degrees with three layers on top, two on the bottom, and heated gloves on my hands. With the jacket liner, I never get really cold anymore.

 

There was a time "when being a biker" was just plain being f***ing stupid. Been there, done that. I'm happy and lucky to still be alive.

I can remember being so cold I couldn't feel my feet when trying to park my bike. I can remember being so cold and wet I quit shivering, and was too f***ing dumb to know I was experiencing hypothermia.

There are two things I can't believe I lived without for 40 years:

1) Riding glasses with foam seals around the eyes,
2) Heated gear.

Dyna rider and I both got smart as we aged.

 

Good leather ski gloves is all you need.
If they can keep a skiers hands warm in winter they'll work fine for riding as well.
It's what I use up here.

 

Heated grips are married to a specific bike. Heated gloves go from bike to bike to bike. Convenient if you ride more than one bike.