Greetings,
Does anyone have advise on a source for a quality heated grip for my '07 ST-1300?
Thanks!
WheelerP
There are lots of options out there. From $20-$250.
Cheapest are the under the grip heating elements. To get the most heat out of these you should have ultra thin grips and insulate the left hand bar (I use bicycle street tire inner tube).
The model from
Aerostich is cheap and simple, has a Y cable in between the power and grips with a resistor on one wire for the low output.
The
dual-star \
symtec model has 3 wires in each grip, no resistor. About the same price, maybe a couple dollars more. Also, there is no need to insulate one bar because each side has a different heat setting. Howver most people find that the left grip is noticeably hotter.
Then there are always the full heated grips. Either
hotgrips brand or
oxford (who now owns hot grips). The nice thing about these types of grips is that they do not have to contend with first heating up the handlebars only to then have to get through your grips in order to get to your hands. However, these issues are mostly for cruiser with 1.25" thick handlebars and 2.5" thick chrome grips. Either way, heat is damn near instant. I have a pair on my naked Hawk GT and it gets hotter than heck. You could probably cook an egg on them.
Ordering through hotgrips, you can order the neat little
PWM variable controller for an extra $35 or $45. Oh, this will work for any type of heated grip and is a very simple in line install. You do need a fair amoutn of space under your fairing for this switch though as the base (the hidden part that will be behind your fairing) is over 1.5" around. Still, its much more stout and simple to install than the heat troller.
If you want to spend a few bucks more, simply for the cool switch, check out
these heat demons heated grips by Symtec. It comes with a handlebar mounted push button switch, the more times you push the button, another LED lights up, indicating the heat output. 1 LED would be low, 4 LEDs be high. I am not sure how the switch or heaters work on this, hopefully its not just a rheostat.
If it weren't for the price, I'd go for the heat demons if only just for the slick looking switch. At least on my cruiser, for the faired bikes I have plenty of room in the plastic to drill and mount stuff.
By the way, the OEM honda grips are made by hotgrips, unless your talking about the chrome accented one for cruisers, those are made, I believe, by showchrome. They have a nifty switch built into the left side grip.
Speaking of built in switches, if you look at the Harley accessory grips. There is a rotary knob on the end of the left hand grip with numbers on it. You can fine tune it to your hearts content, pretty sure its variable between 1-9. However these would not work with bikes that use bar end weights.
