Fun fact about New York City: It gets cold here. The wind chill outside my apartment right now is a brisk 26 degrees, and last weekend we got down to 25. I, a moron, of course spent that 25-degree day trundling all across Brooklyn on my motorcycle with nothing but a leather jacket, heated grips, and Gore-Tex gloves to keep me warm.
Was it comfortable? Hell no. This is not some tale of bravado and how it really wasn’t even that cold bro, I was shivering at stoplights and feeling my fingers go numb at highway speeds. But cold can be combated, so here’s how I’m planning to keep from freezing while I keep riding all winter long.
Why Ride All Winter?
Getting from my apartment to my rock climbing gym takes about an hour by train, but riding a motorcycle halves that time. New York’s subways between most Point As and Point Bs, but traveling from one historically under served part of the city to another can often mean a mix of trains, buses, and walking. If I’m going to travel above ground in traffic anyway, I figure I may as well take my own bike and make fewer stops.
Not yet, although that’s not for lack of trying. It’s still listed on Marketplace. Please buy it, I want an XSR700.
What Kind Of Winter Moto Gear Are You Using?
I’m so glad you asked. As a lifelong Northeasterner, I know that relying on any single garment to keep you warm through the winter is a fool’s errand — anything that actually does that job will generally look like trash or cost $11,000. Often both.
Instead, I’m taking a layered approach to warmth. Base layers, thermals, heat, and armor ought to keep me nice and toasty when the mercury drops. That’s the hope anyway. You all have the right to dunk on me in the comments if it goes poorly. Anyway:
Layer 1: Underwear
You don’t get to see this one. Perverts. If you’re really desperate, drop your Venmo in the comments and we’ll talk.
Layer 2: Heated Base Pieces
Pant liners, a quarter-zip top, and glove liners. I have boot liners around too, somewhere, but I can’t find them. Ordinarily pieces like this wouldn’t keep much heat in, but these are heated on their own. Each part of the assembly either plugs into the bike or plugs into another garment, and it’s all controlled by a box that sits on my hip. Sort of. We’ll get to that.
These pieces will generate heat, but at highway speeds in subzero January temperatures I’ll still need to hold that heat close to my body. That brings us to the next layer:
Layer 3: Armored Adventure Gear
I picked up this Rev’it Tornado 4 jacket and pants earlier this year, hoping to have a set of gear that was as ventilated as possible for riding though the desert outside Vegas on the BMW F900GS. As it turns out, though, the Tornado line has a couple of layers beneath its armored exterior: One waterproof and one thermal.
I tested the waterproof layer earlier this year, riding four hours home from an ex’s place in Massachusetts in the pouring rain, and it worked well enough. I got wetter than I would have in my Gorre-Tex Klim jacket, sure, but that’s more the fault of the Rev’it gear having its waterproofing beneath the armor rather than atop it. I trust that liner to handle snow and wind, so here’s hoping the thermal layer beneath lives up to the standard set by the rain gear.
A full ADV suit isn’t the most attractive thing on the planet, all bulky and technical, but I won’t exactly be riding to the local lesbian bar in all this kit. Well, actually. I do need something to do for New Years’ Eve. Let’s maybe put a pin in that idea.
Regardless of the form, though, that bulk actually helps the function. Air makes for a very good thermal insulator, and each of the four layers of this kit traps a bit of air between it and the next — additional insulation for free. ADV gear looks better than filling your jacket with puffed-up Ziploc bags, at least.
The Electronics
Next come the glove liners, which plug into the sleeves of that quarter-zip, and the box that ties everything together. It’s got two separate leads, so upper and lower body temperatures can be controlled separately, and the whole control box lives nearly in a little 3D-printed box with a clip.
Well, it did live in one. I broke it while taking this photo, which is why everything is blurry. Here’s hoping the next print holds up a little bit better, and continues to do so though whatever winter temperatures New York throws at my poor little PLA.
Layer 3: The Finishing Touches
Glove liners don’t have any armor or insulation, so they get covered with Alpinestars Gore-Tex gloves. I bought these on a 27-degree day, when I took my old G310GS out for an inspection and realized I was freezing in my ventilated leather gloves. These do the trick on their own to a degree, but they’re not infallible. Here’s also hoping they keep the glove liners in place, because those aren’t entirely my size. They’re roomy.
I already ride in a FortNine neck gaiter for pretty much everything but quick jaunts around town — it’s great for keeping tan lines away on sunny days — but it’s going to be even more integral in the cold. Despite being such a thin piece of stretch fabric, it makes a noticeable difference in keeping my neck warm on the bike. I may or may not have three of them.
My helmet is my trusty Arai XD-4, purchased to replace the XD-4 I crashed in on the Trans-Mass Trail. It’s a bad helmet for cold and rain, given its lack of a pinlock, but it’s the helmet I have a comms system on so it’s the one I use. I do have another lid waiting in the wings to be worn, ridden in, and reviewed, so keep your eyes peeled for that once I can get another Cardo. I could wear my dirt goggles in the meantime, but they don’t play great with my glasses. That’ll stay in my back pocket as an as-needed change.
My boots, unfortunately, are my biggest cold-weather failing. I ride in a pair of original-recipe TCX Hero boots, purchased as leftovers off a mannequin at Brooklyn’s short-lived RevZilla because I never liked the look of the replacement Hero 2, and while they’re Doc Marten stylish they’re not exactly the warmest. The questionable zipper on my left certainly isn’t helping matters there, so maybe after the holidays I’ll invest in something taller and warmer. A set of Sidis to match my dirt boots, maybe.
What About The Bike?
A friend of mine who owns a near-identical F800GS swears by their handguards for blocking wind on chilly days, but I don’t really want to invest Barkbuster money into the BMW right now — again, it’s for sale, please buy it. A set of Hippo Hands would be a more likely bet, since they could move between bikes and every New York-area Grubhub driver seems to have them, but that’s another bridge we’ll cross when we really need to get to it.
Brooklyn’s been disappointingly bereft of snow the last couple winters, and I’m really hoping we don’t go three for three on Januaries without snowball fights. You can theoretically buy snow tires for motorcycles, but my GS already has dual-sport rubber with big blocky tread to evacuate mud and dirt — it should handle snow adequately enough.
Riding on road salt requires some additional chain maintenance, which might end up being the worst part of this whole project. When you’re sitting off the bike spraying your chain down with cleaner, you’re not reaping the benefits of that plug-in gear — just the detriments of the cold weather. I just swapped the chain and sprockets on the GS, so hopefully the new kit holds up well to winter weather.
Last But Not Least: A Can-Do Attitude
Do I need to ride my bike all winter? Absolutely not. There are subways and busses and Ubers. I want to keep riding because I want to keep riding, and that attitude will be at the top of my mind on those days that hit zero Fahrenheit before the wind chill. My biggest plan for winter riding? Just enjoy it.
Motorcycling gets you out into the world, makes you a part of your surroundings. Not being insulated the way you are in a car is the point — accepting that, I think, will be the biggest part of learning to enjoy winter riding.