Keis Heated Motorcycle Clothing – Review

We feel sorry for people who don’t ride in winter. Sure, there’s rain, snow, ice and above all the bone chilling cold to deal with, but there are also traffic-free roads, cool, clean air and skill-sharpening challenges, not to mention an often spectacular landscape. No-one should ride beyond their ability, and a snow storm is not ideal if you are a beginner, but most crashes actually happen in spring and summer, and part of that is down to the de-skilling that occurs when bikes are put away in the Autumn and not ridden for months. In fact all-year round riders tend to have lower overall injury rates.

Technical riding skill and good road-craft are important in surviving winter on 2 wheels, but so is keeping warm.

And staying toasty is not just about comfort either. Brain function is seriously impaired when body core temperature falls. Staying warm is nice, but crucially it also keeps you sharp and focused and that’s absolutely vital for staying safe.

Good old fashioned riding clobber is important in the struggle to stay warm – from good base layers to a water and windproof outer – but nothing works quite as well went the mercury hits the floor as heated gear. We struggled through last winter on our ZZR1400 and the heated grips were a godsend, but, like heated seats, had their limitations (see below). Then there’s that awful body chill you get after an hour or two that they just don’t help with. So, we decided to bite the bullet and check out a heated bodywarmer and gloves package. We wanted reliability, and based on a tip from a friend, we chose the known build quality of Keis, which is part of the Motohaus group, going for their Hi-Power X20 Bodywarmer and X800i gloves.

Features

Construction of the bodywarmer is a breathable soft-shell material with elasticated side panels and a soft-lined throat-protecting collar. There are separate ladies and gents versions, though we found the standard ‘male’ one was actually fine for male or female riders. Fit is slightly on the generous side – don’t forget the sides are elasticated.

The gloves are textile with leather reinforcement and substantial hard armour. Both gloves and Hi-Power waistcoat use micro-alloy heating elements which are undetectable – the bodywarmer just feels like normal cloth. Heated panels are located where they are most needed; chest, kidneys and collar. Current draw of the jacket is a modest 3.3 amps.

This version of the gloves (X800i) can be energised by dual power technology – which means either the bike’s 12V battery or Lithium-Ion battery pack. The Hi-Power bodywarmer (X20) However draws more current and must be powered from the bike battery. There’s an X20i version however which can go free-range using Li-Ion, though the heating output is less.

With any of the bodywarmers you can run just the bodywarmer or bodywarmer plus gloves (and insoles too if you like) from the one connection. Much of the infrastructure is built into the bodywarmer, keeping trailing wires to the minimum.

How it works…

Its possible to wear any of the Keis heated clothing as standalone items and all come with a 12V battery wire and inline fuse. But when using the bodywarmer as the location for the power input, it’s possible to reduce wiring by using the stuff already built into the jacket plus additional wiring packs to daisy-chain it all together.

For example, although the gloves come with a Y-shaped wiring loom in case you don’t have the bodywarmer – if you do have it, you can ditch this and just connect two shorter wires (part number W54-370100) which have built in sockets in the bodywarmer arm holes ready and waiting. These shorter wires then run inside your regular outer jacket down to the sleeves where they connect with waterproof push connectors to the gloves. It’s a well thought-out product.

For the torso, temperature regulation is achieved via a controller that fits into the bodywarmer’s outer pocket, though a new handlebar version of this has also just been launched.

For the hands, once plugged into the bodywarmer, the gloves can be independently controlled by illuminated buttons on their upper surfaces that turn different colours depending on the setting. Looks great!

Install

Install is actually very easy, although we nevertheless felt that the instructions could do with improvement as the procedure varies depending on whether you are having one stand alone item or linking a few together. This led to some head scratching and tea drinking here at Castle Mad.

We began by attaching the power lead supplied with the jacket, choosing to connect this to the battery of our ZZR1400 test bike via an on-board fuseblock (from Nippy Norman). This not only keeps connections to the battery uncluttered, but, as the fuseblock has a built in relay, means that all accessories we run from there automatically go off with the ignition. You can of course go straight to the battery terminals instead.

When fitting the inline fuse it’s important to get the rating right… this will vary depending on the total number of accessories you have connected via one main power cable. There’s a handy little table supplied as well as the relevant selection of fuses. We made sure that the connector came out in handy place on the correct side of the bike (left).

For our bodywarmer and gloves set up the total draw is 4.3 amps – so we opted for a 5 amp fuse.All the wires have good quality water-resistant push-fit connectors. The lead from the battery terminates with one of these which we pushed into the socket of the power input lead on the waistcoat which you get at by unzipping an internal pocket (see below).

 

Then it’s a matter of installing the controller. This is a sleek device that fits snugly into an outer pocket. Simply detach the in line link wire (shown in the background here) and then attach the controller. While reasonably accessible, easier control changes while on the move can be achieved via a similar handlebar controller now available.

Once the controller is connected you have a working bodywarmer. However we wanted to run gloves from the same master connection, so we attached the two short wires from the accessory pack (W54-370100) to the ports in the armholes of the bodywarmer. These then connect at the other end of your sleeves to the gloves. Installing the gloves without the body warmer is similar but involves running a Y-shaped wiring loom inside the back and sleeves of your normal outer jacket.

First Impressions

The first thing that strikes you about the product is the build quality, which is excellent. Nice tough looking connectors; robust yet slim controller on the jacket, good quality material and stitching.

In addition to a breathable waterproof membrane, it’s nice to see robust knuckle armour and palm protection on a winter glove too. So many manufacturers seem to give you one or the other – armoured stuff for summer, but padded and non-armoured for winter. Here at last is a glove that not only keeps you warm but protects in equal measure. Nice one.

Using it

The bodywarmer fits unobtrusively under any normal winter jacket (including waterproof leathers). The range of heat settings is wide and easily covered all of our riding from close to freezing to 15 degrees C (we’ll be testing it in sub zero later in the winter so standby for updates). Our two test riders never got anywhere near needing the maximum power output. Wearing this stuff induces a lovely warming feeling – in a psychological as well as physical sense – keeping morale up and instilling a feeling of wellbeing.

Adjusting the controller does require you to stop – and although it not hard to access from the outer pocket and works OK with gloves on it is a bit fiddly. We reckon the handlebar controller would be a useful addition as heating needs vary enormously during most rides (e.g. cold motorway or around town). At the moment this is an extra cost option though.

The gloves connected easily to the bodywarmer and the wires ran down the inside of our tester’s Weise Jackets with no problems. Neither of them sensed the presence of the wires in use. In the end we actually sewed the wring in permanently.

Control of the gloves is superb. They are independent of the bodywarmer control and each is adjustable independently from the other. You simply cycle through a series of colour coded settings via the waterproof buttons on top of each one. As you select a setting, the colour of the button changes. Its easily visible, immediately clear and it works.

The fit of the gloves is pretty accurate (sizes range from XS to XXXL), and once on they feel protective. The rigid hard armour is balanced by flexible sections that allow the hands to stay supple. Grip of the bars and contact with switches is good and we had no leaks despite riding in heavy rain.

In terms of heating, there’s no comparison between these and heated grips really (and much the same thing goes for heated seats). Grips deliver the heat in one place – the palm, leaving the upper surface of the hand cold. Often we found a conflict between keeping hands overall warm and having the palm too hot. Grips are better than nothing – but even the best of them can’t compete with heated gloves for how well they actually do the job.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the Keis heated gloves have been a complete revelation – keeping our testers hands warm all over. Not only did this keep fingers supple enough to operate controls with the finesse needed when road surfaces are tricky, it also made them feel great. A real game changer for winter riding.

Conclusion

This is a high quality stuff; well made and likely to last – just like the Bags Connection luggage (another product linked to Motohaus) we tested earlier in the year.

There are some thoughtful design touches, like the independent and illuminated control on each glove and the versatility that enables you to expand the outfit piece by piece – which is handy as it isn’t cheap. That said, is £140 for a heated waistcoat and £150 for heated gloves that bad? It works so well, we think not. This is good value for money.

Heated biking gear is a huge improvement for both comfort and safety. It will particularly benefit adventure riders, commuters and long distance tourers who will all rack up serious mileages in winter. If you opt for the Dual Power versions you could also use them for practically any use, including standing outside to watch a footie match (handy if there have been no goals for while).

Not much negative to say about these products – however we’d like to see the handlebar control standard for motorcycle applications, with the in- pocket gizmo being retained for only the dual power version or for off-bike use. Clearer instructions with a diagram showing all possible combinations would be handy too.

Heated gear like this is a real game changer for winter riding and we think a major contribution to both comfort and safety. Top Marks to Keis.