Thursday 10 December 2015

Heated Glove Showdown

Heated Glove Showdown
Heated Motorcycle glove review

Keis X900 - left, Keis X800i - middle, RST - right
Bike Stop have provided us with 3 sets of heated gloves to put through their paces. We have 2 pairs from Keis and 1 pair from RST.

Heated gloves have never really been on our ‘to buy’ list since we’ve been biking, but now we’ve had some to try there is quite a big appeal.

The RST THERMOTECH glove



Let’s start with the RST gloves. They offer plenty of palm and finger protection, but lack something across the knuckles. The look and feel is of usual high RST quality. The inner thermal lining feels rather plush, and immediately stands out compared to both the Keis gloves. 


These gloves will keep your hands warm, without the heating on (to a certain extent)! But the benefit of heated gloves is that they don’t need to be too bulky, which is a nice change from the usual ‘non-heated’ thermal gloves.


All these gloves can be switched ON, and controlled from a single button on each glove. They all offer 3 heat settings: hot, warm and err…tepid. Colours easily identify the heat settings on the ON and OFF button: red, yellow and green.

Once turned on, heat only takes a minute to filter through to your hands, meaning that by the time the bike is up to temperature, the gloves will be well on the way to being warm. Quite a nice on these cold winter mornings we're having.


The button to turn the gloves ON and OFF on the RST gloves and change the heat setting is in a rather awkward position (on the outside of your wrist). If you want to change the settings whilst riding, you have to remove your hands from the handle bars and bring them together to press the button. This makes for awkward guess work as to weather you’ve actually pressed the button or not.

This was quite a let down with the glove because everything else is so ‘right’. The battery for the gloves connects in a waterproof pocket on the underside of the wrist, inside the glove. Surprisingly the weight of the battery goes unnoticed when on the bike. We found the battery life to give us approx. 2 hours of use.




The Keis X800i & X900 heated gloves

We have two different versions from Keis the X800i & X900.



The Keis X900 heated glove doesn’t look as nice and doesn’t appear to be as robust as the RST glove. However it’s not all down to looks…


The X900 offers similar levels of protection as the RST glove, but is again lacking knuckle protection. The X900 does offer a waterproof inner lining and breathable textile shell though.

The thermal liner inside the glove leaves a bit to be desired, whilst it’s not bad, it’s nowhere near as thick and soft as the RST glove. The glove is very comfortable and warm, although there seemed to be a lack of heat around the finger tips – which is the part of your hand that get’s the coldest on really cold rides.


The X900 comes with two power source options, one is to use the battery packs which slot in to a zipped pocket inside the glove, and the other is to use the supplied lead to connect direct to a 12v bike battery.

We didn’t try the lead connections because we were worried we would forget we were connected by a lead as we stepped off the bike. The thought of pulling the bike over and dragging the wires along was scary. The owner’s manual does state that the friction connections will come apart with sufficient force. But it seems to be something else to worry about…

The downsides are extra wires to think about but it eliminates any battery life woes!

Keis battery - left, RST battery - right

The Keis battery packs are larger than the RST ones and slightly heavier (we’re talking grams here) but the weight is not noticeable when riding. The ON/OFF and temperature control button on the X900 is in a very user-friendly place. The button is on top of the hand making it very easy to adjust when on the move and to see what heat setting the gloves are on.


During our test we found the batteries on the Keis X900 to last approx. 3 hours.

Finally we come to the X800i glove and this is where we came a bit stuck when comparing them to the other two.



It comes with a decent amount of external protection including carbon look knuckle guards and finger tip re-enforcement. The thermal liner is the same as the X900, so leaves a little bit to be desired, although we must remember it’s by no means bad.



The ON/OFF and temperature control button is in a nice location on top of the hand, and is easy to operate when on the move. There is no zipped pocket to store the batteries meaning you'd have to stow the batteries in your jacket pocket and use the supplied cables. These gloves also come with wire connections to power them via the bike’s battery.






For us, heated gloves need to be mobile off the bike. So, we really struggled to get on with these when there are gloves from RST & Keis that come with a battery pack & pouch. 



We prefer a heated glove with a battery pack. It seems to be the better option because you have less wires, less hassle and you don’t have to worry about unplugging yourself when you need to re-fuel or even in an emergency situation. So heated gloves are a the perfect option for winter riding, unless you forget to charge the batteries.  

Okay, but how much do they cost?

The RST Thermotech gloves retail at £149.99
The X800i gloves retail at £149.99 with the battery pack costing an additional £60
The X900 gloves retail at £130 with the battery pack costing an additional £60

As heated gloves, all of these work very all at keeping your hands warm. They offer very similar levels of heat, so the only other things that can truly be compared are: comfort, design and price. And that’s where the RST gloves come out on top.



Even though they are a bit more difficult to adjust heat whilst on the move, they are the most affordable and they simply look and feel better. The battery life may also be a tad shorter than the others, but the thicker thermal lining is sure to keep you warmer in the long run.

Nice one RST.

The heated gloves in this review are available to be purchased from Bike Stop.

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All the best
BirotarUK
 




Tuesday 1 December 2015

The Bhood

The Bhood!



We're excited to announce that the winter 2015 Bhood is nearly here after popular demand. We've teamed up with a local supplier to ensure that you get the best quality garment finished to the highest standard - B style. 


BirotarUK embroidery (front of Bhood)

We are going to do a production run over the next week w/c Dec 7th 2015.

Here's what you need to know:

  • The Bhood is a uni-sex black zip-up hoodie (made by Uneek clothing).
  • You can view the sizing guide online here (if you are going to wear the hoodie over your textiles or leathers, then we recommend going 1 or 2 sizes up depending on how bulky your gear is).
  • You will have two options
    • option 1 is to have the 'B' in white
    • option 2 is to have the 'B' in a silver reflective material (we're going to have a reflective one)
  • The front of the hood will have 'BirotarUK' stitched on the left breast
  • The Bhood is £25 delivered to your door, for free anywhere in the UK
    • if you would like to purchase a hoodie and have it shipped anywhere outside of the UK, please contact us before making your order on birotaruk@gmail.com
    • Payment to be made via Paypal
So, you want a Bhood?

That's awesome - here's what you need to do:

  1. Send £25 to birotaruk@gmail.com via Paypal by Sunday 6th of December 2015 
  2. Include: your size and if you want the 'B' in white or reflective material AND your full postal address

We will keep you in the loop and confirm that we have received your payment.
The Bhood is being made to order especially for you - so we will let you know as soon as it's ready and out in the post (should be approx. 14 working days from confirmation of your order).

Have we missed anything? Do you have any questions? Just ask! You can contact us via email, on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.