Cold weather riding gear

[scianiac]

I think for most people heated pants and vest shouldn't be needed and cost more and be more complex than good gear, I mean snowmobilers ride around in any temperature you could imagine at higher speeds often with much less physical activity.

That being said I have tried various different heated clothing bits and many seem to have issues. Anything that moves too much is prone to breaking, better quality less so but perhaps not that much less so. If you're going to be running a buck converter to lower the voltage anyway and want something cheaper I have made some heated clothing before and they seem to be more durable than at least the cheap stuff and pretty easy to increase that more. Reason being the resistive wire or carbon tape used in many of these is pretty fragile. If you use a lot more wire and a lower voltage you can use much thicker and more durable wire. I've used 40ga teflon and 28ga silicone in the past. The fine teflon is so thin you can use a large needle to weave it in but durability wise a larger gauge of high strand count silicone and a 5v or less power supply would be ideal. Also the silicone wire has a bonus that if you need to find a break and repair it at some point you can use needle multimeter probes to peirce the insulating and find the fault, can't really do that with harder insulation materials.

I've also noticed many of the cheaper heated devices have terrible distribution and all the pictures in the listings are lying. Another possible advantage to DIY options. I've found that the best directed heating devices provide a very low level of heater to the largest possible area, small heating areas only work if you don't need that much heat which may be the case if you have good insulation and wind protection which should come first anyway. At this point I'm more aiming for being able to add heat to hands and feet for a short amount of time, once you get them warmed up and the blood flowing they'll stay warm assuming your core is warm which is much easier to do with decent gear and trivial if you're exercising at all.

 

[Zambam]

I was wondering how long my heated gloves will last. I will be using them gingerly. No lifting things with them. Do you have link to a source of the teflon and silicone insulated wire?

 

[Zambam]

Did some quick hot gluing. The N95 masks has 3 layers. The least restrictive is the middle one which I am using, the outer layer is similar to the middle, most restrictive is the inner layer. Breathing through the mask does not feel restrictive. Will know more during road test.

How did you attach the mask to the balaclava? Hot glue?
I need to try some 3M Tegaderm tape used in hospitals for attaching iv ports and dressing. It's thin and waterproof. If it sticks to silicone, will be so much easier than hot glue.

 

[scianiac]

The Teflon wire was forever ago so I can't recall where, but it was a little tricky to find so small. The silicone wire can be found easily online, you just need to plan out how much length you need against the resistance and desired power output. Also the silicone wire will probably be the high strand count style which is more resistant to fatiguing and breaking. And adjustable power supply helps a lot there and probably looking at some commercial options for their rated power outputs to get an idea where to aim. Also I would say anywhere that a heating devices is pressed against you you need to watch the heat, it doesn't take much to become uncomfortable, just feels weird I guess.

It doesn't take much to keep it in place, I kinda used the bayonets stuck through the fabric. The hot glue seems to stick surprisingly well but I think the neatest option may be to just stitch the silicone to the fabric. Just a couple little stitches is probably all you need and would be easy to reposition later by just cutting the stitches. You can also poke some holes in the fabric and stick those two nubs through. Kinda all depends how stealthy you want to make it look. I don't know if mask is actually silicone or synthetic rubber, RTV silicone will stick well to it if it's silicone.

I think that middle looser material looks like it will be perfect, a few layers maybe, just depends on how cold and how hard you're breathing. You shouldn't really feel any resistance to breathing.

 

[Zambam]

Did a bit more work. Found this handy white elastic strap with slots to hold the mask onto my face. The velcro on the scarf is not sufficient for the mask to stay in position and it slips. The added white elastic strap does the job. The round beige discs are the valves from the mask and prevent the elastic strap from slipping off the nub it's attached to. I'll cut the white strap and sew on velcro to make it easy on/ off like the scarf. I am going to try using the single hole in the scarf for now and see how it works with side holes covered by the scarf. Still need to make some tiny holes in the mask with a hot needle so I can sew the scarf to the mask. Btw the grey velcro came from an old blood pressure monitor cuff.

 

[Zambam]

I think for most people heated pants and vest shouldn't be needed and cost more and be more complex than good gear, I mean snowmobilers ride around in any temperature you could imagine at higher speeds often with much less physical activity.

That being said I have tried various different heated clothing bits and many seem to have issues. Anything that moves too much is prone to breaking, better quality less so but perhaps not that much less so. If you're going to be running a buck converter to lower the voltage anyway and want something cheaper I have made some heated clothing before and they seem to be more durable than at least the cheap stuff and pretty easy to increase that more. Reason being the resistive wire or carbon tape used in many of these is pretty fragile. If you use a lot more wire and a lower voltage you can use much thicker and more durable wire. I've used 40ga teflon and 28ga silicone in the past. The fine teflon is so thin you can use a large needle to weave it in but durability wise a larger gauge of high strand count silicone and a 5v or less power supply would be ideal. Also the silicone wire has a bonus that if you need to find a break and repair it at some point you can use needle multimeter probes to peirce the insulating and find the fault, can't really do that with harder insulation materials.

I've also noticed many of the cheaper heated devices have terrible distribution and all the pictures in the listings are lying. Another possible advantage to DIY options. I've found that the best directed heating devices provide a very low level of heater to the largest possible area, small heating areas only work if you don't need that much heat which may be the case if you have good insulation and wind protection which should come first anyway. At this point I'm more aiming for being able to add heat to hands and feet for a short amount of time, once you get them warmed up and the blood flowing they'll stay warm assuming your core is warm which is much easier to do with decent gear and trivial if you're exercising at all.

You make many good points about electric heating! Getting back to DIY electric heating. Is the 28 ga silicone wire copper, not nichrome? Per Wire Resistance Calculator - Cirris Inc 28 AWG wire is 0.0649 ohms / ft. Did you make a heated jacket with this wire? To get 20 W of heating (I'm guessing that's what's needed for a jacket) @ 12V, 7.2 ohms in the wire is needed.

Ohms Law Calculator

This free Ohm's Law calculator solves for any of the variables in the Ohm's Law equation using various units of measurement and gives out the solving steps.

www.calculator.net

7.2/ 0.0649= 110 ft of 28 AWG wire is needed. Is that correct?

How many watts were you running?

 

[scianiac]

I made the jacket using the 40ga teflon which was 12V and later also made a seat heater with that but while it did work for quite awhile eventually it failed from the wear of sitting on it. Later I repaired a different chair heater with silicone wire and that had first a PWM controller and later a buck converter to adjust the power. I don't recall how many watts the jacket was (I made it for someone else as a motorcycling jacket), the seat heaters were not very much as the direct contact can become uncomfortable.

Looking around the wattages of jackets depend on usage, battery powered ones are often only 10-20w while motorcycle and snowmobile versions are often 70w+.

But you can see why an adjustable buck converter that can go to 5V or less is nice, you don't need to get the heating power just right when building as you can adjust it later and the lower voltage makes it easier to use a reasonable length of durable wire. The trick is finding a buck converter that will go from ebike battery voltage down that low. Something like this perhaps. It seems like it's also pretty easy to find 30ga silicone wire. So if you use a buck converter like that and wired it for 80w at 12v which may be needed for high speed motorcycle like riding or you could turn it down to 10w for warmer temps, pedaling, slower speeds, etc.

I would still recommend waiting on trying for heated jacket or pants until you try things out, an extra layer in either of those departments goes a long way and is much easier to manage. A thermal shirt and a pair of long johns for instance. Hands, feet and head all have issues with adding too much insulation and have high surface area to blood flow (well not the head as much but) but torso and legs you can easily add more insulation without it becoming an issue. That is to say gloves that are too thick, socks that are too thick to fit in shoes, helmets and head coverings, masks and breathing are all issues but thicker pants and a jacket are less so.

While I have about a dozen heated devices I use regularly in winter, previous years I actually didn't use them biking. With some pedaling and frankly not even very good winter gear jacket and pants wise the only issue was hands and feet and then the issue was rewarming them once my core was good and hot, and it often was leading to opening jackets and such. Through those winters I ended up focusing on hands, feet, and head which I mostly fixed with poggies, warm gloves, the mask, warm socks, and overshoes. So extrapolating from that experience, with much less pedaling, I think I will need better body gear, so maybe some actual insulated pants and not just cargo pants and some long johns and an actual wind blocking shell and not just a thermal shirt and a fleece. And then I will need much better hands, feet and head. So same as before but with heated insoles and heated gloves and head was normally fine before as long as fully covered but mask V2 with helmet integration should take care of that.

 

[Zambam]

I am not making a heated jacket or pants anytime soon, just gathering knowledge. I do want to experiment with DIY heated grips as my next project. The heated gloves are nice but they require maintenance in charging and they won't last forever. I had an 8 am dermatologist appointment this morning. It was around 38 F out, not that cold. After a few min of turning them on the gloves shut off. I forgot to charge the batteries after using them for about an hour last time. With heated grips, if they work as well as the heated gloves, I wouldn't have to worry about running out of batteries.

Tried the heat exchanger mask outside for the first time also. Fogging of the goggles is no longer an issue. Getting it on and off was quick and easy with 2 velcro closures. Breathing did not feel restricted and I was comfortable. Maybe at lower temperatures, I'd like it a bit warmer. Do you think adding aluminum screen material for thermal mass on the inside will help in that department?

 

[Zambam]

Found this outfit that sells 40 awg teflon wire Ultra-Flexible Microminiature PTFE Hook-Up Wire (#2452-2453) $471 for 100 ft! That's out of my budget. Magnet wire is much cheaper and hopefully the insulation will be good enough.

 

[Zambam]

This site HEAT EXCHANGER MASKS – FEEDING THE RAT EXPEDITIONS is geared towards high altitude expedition climbing. An interesting article on heat exchanger masks.

 

[scianiac]

For fixed applications magnet wire would be a good option, although for heated grips I think the super cheap carbon tape plastic ones that go under a standard rubber grip would be fine. They aren't moving so durability should be good. I was considering this route and may try it on my fat bike but I don't like that it increases the diameter of the grips which I find any more diameter can be uncomfortable. The heated glove I have, both pairs have external cables that run into a usb plug so can be hooked up to a usb power bank, the wires can be a pain to run down your sleeves though.

Aluminum screen should warm the air up more, I would recommend putting it on the inside or sort of shielded from the outside with the other layer of material. That way the wind won't suck the heat out of it. You can see inside of mine I used some hot glue around the edges of the screen to keep them from fraying and stick several layers together, worked great.

Also as I'm working on my new mask I ordered some neoprene fabric which I think will be a good option if I need to add some wind blocking while keeping some elasticity in the fabric, if you need more wind protection on the fleece part a layer of that on the outside may be a good option. Better than windbreaker nylon which won't have any stretch.

 

[Frizzaper]

I've found that heated gloves are too delicate to depend on. After they break, they're usually nowhere near as warm as normal gloves of comparable price. I got a pair of these last year, and they have been working great for me. You get the dexterity of thin liner gloves instantly, without taking anything off, when you need to work on something and the warmth of mittens when you're actually riding. I picked up $140 mittens and a good set of liners this year, but even those don't work as well as the ones I linked.

 

[Zambam]

Amazon.com

I paid $60 for my first pair. Very impressed by them. Soft and supple, well insulated, even heating including fingertips. Price drop to $44 (don't know for how long). Great value/ performance. Each battery is 7.2 V @ 4000 mah. I just bought another pair. If it last me more than one winter I'll be happy.

 

[scianiac]

From my experience though poggies should be done before heated or super heavy gloves. If they are not enough combined with thinner gloves then you can up it to heated or thicker mittens. But poggies can be much thicker and wind blocking without interfering with usability as much as thick gloves or battery and reliability issues. For me poggies and normal gloves are enough for quite cold temps if I'm pedaling and after I rewarm my hands in my shirt or something after I get my core warmed up so for me the heated gloves may be used for just a little bit as that rewarm step without having to stop or to add some heat if I don't have the core temp to keep them warm (not pedaling).

 

[Zambam]

I did have well insulated pogies last winter and they were not good enough to keep my hands warm. Here are 2 identical pairs that's been removed since I bought the heated gloves, one with lambswool sewn onto the cuff to block cold air infiltration. The battery heated gloves are night and day in comparison.

 

[scianiac]

Very interesting, well I'm more excited to try out my heated gloves then. There are so many variables to the perfect setup but I think you're probably with me in that no amount of insulation will keep my hands warm without raising my core temp significantly or physically adding heat but it seems that a lot of people don't have this issue and insulation is enough.

 

[Zambam]

I have very poor blood flow to my hands. I'm indoors now, room temp around 73 F. Washed some vegies with 66 F cold water (per thermocouple meter), hands wet for 30 seconds. Hand and fingertips are cold afterwards (78 F per thermocouple). They will not warm up unless I soak them in hot water for a minute or put them under my armpits (94 F per thermocouple) for 5 minutes. If I touch something cold with bare hands when riding even for a few seconds my hands get cold, the elec gloves makes a big difference by raising the temps inside to between 115 to 155 F (depends on power setting) which is essential for my hands and fingers to warm up.

I rode with the elec gloves this morning again at around 38 F and found that the middle setting was a little too warm which made my hand sweat a little. Low setting was sufficient.

I am doing a heating time test on the batteries. Fully charged, it's been heating on low setting for 3 hours now. I'll report back when it eventually shut itself off.

 

[Chalo]

I have very poor blood flow to my hands.

Do you use tobacco, decongestant, antihistamine, uppers, lots of caffeine or salty foods? Those things can constrict your blood vessels. Maybe you could try a vasodilator supplement.

 

[Zambam]

Do you use tobacco, decongestant, antihistamine, uppers, lots of caffeine or salty foods? Those things can constrict your blood vessels. Maybe you could try a vasodilator supplement.

No, none of those things. I'm in very good health otherwise, take no meds, not over weight, not too thin. BMI 20.5. Any other theories?

 

[Zambam]

............
Aluminum screen should warm the air up more, I would recommend putting it on the inside or sort of shielded from the outside with the other layer of material. That way the wind won't suck the heat out of it. You can see inside of mine I used some hot glue around the edges of the screen to keep them from fraying and stick several layers together, worked great.
.........

I found some aluminum screen from an old aluminum screen door. They don't seem to make those anymore, screen fabric are plastic now that are easy to puncture. Before trying the aluminum screen, which is more involved, I stuffed what's left of the N95 mask inside for an insulation layer against the rubber mask, which does conduct the cold from the outside. In my test ride this morning, I think it does help but more testing is required.

 

[Zambam]

...................
I am doing a heating time test on the batteries. Fully charged, it's been heating on low setting for 3 hours now. I'll report back when it eventually shut itself off.

At 4 hours, I had to go to bed so I shut them off. Continued test this morning and the gloves shut itself off cumulative 5 hours running on low. Good data point to have so I know when to charge the batteries.

 

[Theodore Voltaire]

We all know about coats, and sweaters in cold weather, but this head covering has had a huge positive impact on my cold weather riding. It keeps my head, neck, and ears warm, and also is long enough to fit down under my shirt. I like the fact that you can cover your mouth, or pull it down under your chin when riding. It's shear enough to wear under a helmet, and easily fits in your pocket when you get off your bike.

Amazon.com

 

[Zambam]

In addition to the things already mentioned I have two others I've found very useful when it's proper cold out.

Shoe covers, these work great when warm socks are not enough. They are designed to go over clipless cycling shoes so to fit over normal shoes or flat pedal shoes you'll need to get a size way way over the recommended.
..................

What do you think of these? https://www.amazon.com/Covers-Zipper-Reusable-Waterproof-Non-Slip/dp/B0C4XVPWH8/ref
to go over sneakers.

 

[scianiac]

They look OK, I do wish there were better options. I have these and while they work great and look a bit warmer than those, having some insulation and being a tighter fit they aren't perfect. While I think they are easier to put on because you can slide them over your foot before you put the shoe on then pull the the front and back lips over the shoe they are designed for clipless shoes so you have to guess what size to order and hope it fits. Mine are XXXL and they just barely fit over my size 9 sneakers. If you could find something in the middle that is larger and designed for regular shoes but has an open bottom so you can put them on in the same way and maybe a bit of insulation. I'm looking but I don't see anything that doesn't look like a pain to get on and off. Although the type that just covers the toebox when combined with other options may be enough.

These just arrived so I'm excited to try them out, hopefully better than my terrible heated gloves.

 

[Zambam]

The boot covers are to stop wind infiltration, which I hope will add enough warmth to the seakers+ merino socks for the temps I'll be riding in (seldom below 32 F). Just found these https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806030618154.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa
cheaper ones which does the same thing.

Are you using batteries with the heated foot pads or running wires/ plugging it into a USB port? (which could snag while pedaling)

What kind of heated gloves do you have?