Heated Liner

SPEC: wired-line heating style jacket liner with heat all over, including sleeves and collar. Collar has a nice plush sued look collar lining. Wouldn’t be the same without the collar.

Pros: Low maintenance, easy fitting, good quality of stitching and seems, heated glove extension wires from wrist pockets.

Cons: needs a shirt underneath, the wires can give a roast ham look to your skin if worn for toooo long in very cold conditions where you need it wicked up, the heating wire can move and especially around the shoulders bind a little. Hand cleaning is a PITA

Rating: 4 out of 5

Paired with the core heating liner are the waterproof leather sport-gloves.

Heated Gloves

SPEC: floating carbon knucle and carbon outer wrist gaurd, goat skin palm, porella breathable/water repelling shell between the thinsulate liner and leather outer and reflective piping and fingers. They are certainly well eqipped and feel nice on. These are the 2nd set of gloves after the left hand of the 1st set had a wiring problem after riding 8hrs in typhoon rain 🙂 To their credit they’d already covered about 15,000kms before the typhoon test.

Funny thing about the heated gloves is that when you they get wet and you’re running the heat, they shape to your hand on the grip .. . like a glove 🙂 The little finger was a little tight and awkward but has since developed a tonne of free room.

Pros: Qaulity, feature and function rich, true 3 season ALL weather gloves.

Cons: spongy screen wiper breaks down prematurely, shape change when heated and wet could go wrong. Seems to be no recommended way to clean them.

Rating: 4 out of 5

VITAL

The controller. Am currently running the wired dual controller which allows seperate operation of the gloves and liner. Real handy! On the expressway the gloves needed a little less than the chest on the upright FZ1 where wind speed cuts the effectiveness of the screen. In the twisties, the gloves needed a bit more.

Can’t wait to try a wireless controller!

Ok, on with the ride. Basic route: Ebina-Atsugi-Kendo64sen-412-413Doushimichi-138Hakoneurasen-FujiAzamiLine-138-Tomei back! Dry and good, if dark, visibility. Some fauna!!

Lifted the cover and the FZ1 was ready as always

The run up the 64 was the warm up and it was a bit slick here and there. The pocket racers at the combini 1/2 way up were all eyes as the FZ1’s Graves exhaust growled by. Sagamiko had a couple of drifter trucks with cars loaded in the parking area.

Stopped in at the 7/11 by the 412/413 crossover for a bite to eat and met a cool local guy who was into modding cars. Check out this ￥1000 special. Seriously, he bought it for a green one and chopped and beat it in 40 minute.

Continued down the Doushi seeing a few bikes here and some tuned cars there. Was really worried about deer so took it easy and just enjoyed running lines. Besides, the FZ1 had a fresh shoe on the rear so a little caution was in order.

Doushi was great, as was the Hakoneura with almost no cars on the road, the heat dialled up and a crescent of moon overhead. Down by Yamanakako, got to see the 1st air temp sign, 9°. Not too bad.

From the Hakoneurasen, swung west onto the Fuji-Azmino line (rt150) for the hillclimb upto the 5th station on the east side of Fuji at 2000m above sea level.

That is a nice road, well the first 5km is near on perfect and the rest is nice but in need of a new layer of blacktop. On the straight run up, another temp sign showed 7° at around 500m. Around the 4th big sweeper a big buck and some doe where grazing on the verge. Turned the pace down and proceeded up through the drift marks and several more deer. Boy, the buck have magnificient horns this time of the year.

Had to wick up the heat a few times on the climb but it managed. At the top, the bike was reading 9° in the airbox which translates to @3-4° in the free world. With just a leather jacket on the outside, a heat-tech skivvy underneath and the heated liner sandwiched in between, the core was still plenty toasty.

At the top, the lights looking out over Goemba were spectacular.

But, a new app on the android was telling me what I felt was true. It was .. . .

Looking at time and with quickly freezing paws, it was time to head back. So, mounted up and rolled down cautiously seeing only 1 big buck on the way down. Then back on the 138 to Gotemba. From Gotemba, a quick flight down the Tomei and home had the FZ back on the stand at 1:45am.

All in, just over 250km, less than 4 and 1/2 hours and a smooth night on the road