I decided to take my bike up to Cobourg and then off to Oshawa this weekend. I knew it was going to be cold and a chance of rain. But travelling on the 401 highway at higher speeds makes cold really fraking cold. Combine that with my hand issue and it becomes a real problem. For example, when they removed the row of bones from my right wrist, it leaves me with no wrist. Like no thin part.
It is best explained that I have a hand connected to my arm and no wrist in between. Motorcycle gloves are simply not designed for my right hand and are always very difficult and a bit painful to get on and off. Additionally, I have about 40-50 percent of my grip strength. That is plenty enough to brake my bike with the ABS brakes, but when a glove is stiff, it gets challenging. So having thick waterproof insulated gloves does not work. I cannot make a fist with those gloves using my right hand. So controlling my throttle and brake is out of the question. In fact, I must have tried more than 10 pairs of Gore-Tex insulated gloves last week to no avail.
I am presently wearing a very nice pair of kangaroo leather from Australia. So riding with these on a cold day is fraking cold. So basically, I stopped at every En-Route alone the 401 which is about every 70-100 Km and ran to the bathroom and without even washing my hands, I would hold them under the hand dryer to warm up. I then would hold the open end of the gloves under the hand dryer to completely warm up the gloves as well.
Then off to the next En-Route…
I will be spending extra time and effort trying to solve this issue. I have to investigate heated gloves, liners and even a muff. Heated grips will not help the outside of my fingers.
Oh, and did I mention that on the way alone River Side Road that I made a last minute decision to quickly stop at a diner to go for a pee at 7:00 AM which resulted in me hitting their stone and sand parking area at about 15-30 Km/hr and my front wheel plowed in and the bike laid down and did a 360 turn around.
To my surprise, the extra large Shad Saddle Bags and the added weight on my handle bars from Kuryakyn made it so that nothing on the bike actually touches the ground and allows for a 1-2 foot gap between the rider and road. I lifted the bike to find absolutely no scratches other than some marks on the plastic saddle bags that do not show at all. The rear view mirror popped inwards and I got to use the tools in the tool kit from Honda to put the mirror back on and adjust it properly. The Honda has a fuel cut-off so it took a bit to re-start the bike. I had yet another adventure which is right inline with the name of my blog, Riding Adventures (LOL)…
p.s. I did not hurt myself at all.
I agree that heated gloves may be your answer, although I don’t know that I’d like the wiring they would require. Unlike my bike, yours probably has a built-in 12-volt outlet.
I do have a heated vest I use in winter. I use an auxillary 12-volt battery to power it. But cold hands are the worst part of winter riding and, like you, I have to stop periodically to warm them.
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