[REVIEW] Heated Grips: Daytona Vs Oxford Vs R&G
Heated grips are probably the single best upgrade you can get on a motorcycle to make it more comfortable, being for touring or commuting all year long.
Even in a warm climate like we have in Portugal, heated grips make it possible to wear summer (or mid season) gloves all year long and make your winter riding a lot more pleasurable.
The big question is which ones to buy. A quick search online will find you a few different brands and prices. The most popular being the Oxford Hot Grips (in their various iterations) and probably the R&G. The Daytonas are a little less common.
I’ve fitted Daytona heated grips to the ZZR a couple of years ago and recently bought the Oxford Premium Touring Hot Grips for the Super Duke. I’ve also tried out the R&G on a friend’s Bandit600 and if you’re interested in a user opinion, this are my thoughts:
Daytona Heated Grips
I’m picky with the grips on my bikes, I don’t like thick or hard rubber grips and when I was looking for my first set of heated grips that was an important factor. The price was another so at the time the Oxford Hot Grips (75€-80€) where out of the question.
After some looking around online I decided to make use of a deal on Louis.De and bought a set of Daytonas for about 45€ + shipping.
Because it was spring the grips where at a discount and I ended buying them cheap and have plenty of time to fit them.
I love the looks and feel of the grips, they are thin and rubbery but not too thin or too soft and are a perfect fit for the ZZR. I actually think they look and feel better than the original ones.
As for the wiring and controller, they are easy enough to install, although I ended up going the easy route an wired them directly to the battery, meaning if I forget them on they will drain the battery. (Although in 2 years that as never happened)
The controller comes with a bracket to fit to the handlebars but has the ZZR has clip-one I’ve opted to fit it with Velcro and when not in use (Summer) it stays stuck to the inner side of the right air duct, and when I need it I just change it to a bit of Velcro on the triple clamp.
The controller as 3 positions: OFF, START and ON, which that is it’s weakest point.
START gives full power (48W) and beats the grips pretty fast, but it’s meant to be used solely has a start up function and the instructions state that it must NEVER be used for longer than 1min or the whole system might fail.
However I’ve found the ON setting (15W) to be too weak at times and when the weather is really cold my hands start to get chilly even with the heated grips so I just ended up ignoring the warnings and use the START function whenever I need a bit extra warmth. It does get a bit too hot after a while so I just go back and fourth between ON and START to try and keep a comfortable temperature. Which is not perfect, but the system as spent a lot more than 1min in full power mode and it has never failed or even degraded itself, so I guess the guys at Daytona where being a bit overzealous.
After two years of use and about 20.000km the grips show some signs if use but nothing much and still feel and work great, so the build quality is very good.
In Summary:
PROS: good quality build; very good grip feeling; stock look, price.
CONS: Only two heat setting (and you’re only supposed to use one); the ON heat setting is not enough at times; the controller has annoying colored wires showing, the controler is a “old fashioned” twist dial.
R&G Heated grips
A friend was looking for a set of well priced heated grips to fit on her Suzuki Bandit 600 I suggested the Daytonas, if the lack of heat settings wheren’t a problem or the R&G which I had never tried but seem to atract good reviews and where about the same price (about 50€ shipping included, off ebay).
She ended buying the R&G and I had the opportunity to test them on a recent night time commute with the Bandit.
Has far as heated grips come I think this ones are awesome, the controller has just one button that switches between 5 different heat settings and they are properly toasty!
I rode about 50km on mostly B roads, at night with an average air temperature of around 6C, which is probably the kind of weather that makes me have to start switching between the ON and START setting on the Daytonas but on the R&G I just started with the Máx setting (5) to get them heated and then had to back down to 2 to have a comfortable temperature. Anything above 3 has too hot for comfort, which shows how versatile and powerful the heated grips are, allowing the rider to suit them to different (and harsher) weather conditions and personal preference.
The controller is a small square with just one button that cycles between OFF, 1,2,3,4,5, OFF with each press, lighting a small 5 red LED scale. The scale can be a bit difficult to read at times because of the proximity between the LEDs making it difficult to assess exactly how many of them are actually ON, and the fact that it only has one button makes you have to cycle trough all the levels to go back one, but that’s just nitpicking really. It works just fine, and has the bonus of remembering the last setting you left them on, so say you turn off your bike for a few minutes to get something from the tank bag or anwser a call. If you have your grips wired to the a ignition they will turn off and when you get the bike back on they will turn on the exact same setting they where when you turned the bike off.
As for the rest of the time when you don’t want a set of heat and you just need those rubbery things that help you hold on to the handlebars, the R&G a not so impressive, they’re made of a thicker and less rubbery material than the Daytonas and the indentations on it are deeper. They are perfectly fine if you’re not as picky as me with your grips and feel perfectly adequate on a commuter bike.
They don’t however look or feel as good as the Daytonas on a Sports Bikes.
The different material is probably the price to pay for the more effective heat transfer, and if you live in a colder climate I would recommend this over the Daytonas for their extra settings and heating capacity.
In Summary:
PROS
– Very warm and powerful
– Plenty of heat settings to suit the rider and the conditions (5)
– Well priced
CONS
– Somewhat plastiquy feeling
– Don’t look as good as some other options
– Controller with just one button and at times hard to read LED scale
Finally the most expensive option of this lot, the ubiquous Oxford Hot Grips.
I was looking for a set of grips for my Super Duke and I wanted the heat settings and power of the R&Gs and the looks and feel of the Daytonas so ended up biting the bullet and shelling out 75€ for the 2013 Oxford Hot Grips Premium Touring.
Actually I wanted the thiner Premium Sports version, but they had none in stock and after looking at a set of Oxford (non heated) Sports grips I decided to go for the supposedly more comfortable and durable Touring version.
They come with a very simple to fit harness and a intelligent heat controller that makes it possible to feed the grips directly from the battery terminals without the need for splicing a live ignition wire and/or using a relay. What the controller does is monitor the voltage and whenever it detects a drop in voltage below 11,5V or the lack of “noise” on the lead it will switch off the grips so that they don’t completely drain the battery, be it because the alternator is not giving enough power or because the bike as been turned off.
The grips themselves are made of soft rubber with asymmetrical design to allow for better comfort, grip and durability (or so they say), what that means is that the tip of your fingers as a texture that is meant to increase feeling and on the palms you get a block pattern to increase comfort and dampen vibrations.
I’ve been using them for a couple of weeks in the cold weather of the Netherlands and they quite are comfortable. They’re thicker than the Daytonas and obviously thicker than the standard grips on the Super Duke so if your picky like me they require a little getting used to.
They do however provide good dampening and allow you to retain the feel for the bike, so I guess that multi-texture marketing thing may actually have some practical effect.
Has for the heating settings, there is nothing to fault, in 100% power they heat up evenly and quickly to a roasty temperature and you can then reduce to 75%, 50%. 40% or 30%.
I’ve found that riding in 7ºC – 8ºC below 100km/h the 40% setting is perfect, above 100km/h I had to increase to 50%. Keep in mind that I do have handguards fitted which significantly reduce windchill, but was wearing summer/mid season gloves (Alpinestar SP2).
In Summary:
PROS
– Very warm and powerful
– Plenty of heat settings to suit the rider and the conditions (5)
– Comfortable
– Build quality
– Simple wiring with the intelligent controller that shuts them off automatically
CONS
– Not as thin as the Daytonas
– The most expensive of the lot
So this are my thoughts for now, hope it can be of use for someone thinking on buying heated grips.
Given I haven’t had the Oxford Hot Grips for long I’ll update this if with time I find anything wrong or worth mentioning.
As always, please comment and subscribe to the blog for more feedback and updates!
“Do Not Adjust Your Set”: The Rider’s Digest
Check out Stuart’s post from This Biker’s Life "Do Not Adjust Your Set": The Rider's Digest and his full article at “The Rider’s Digest” for the coolest KTM ever!
If I’m ever in a Walking Dead kind of scenario this what I wanna be riding!
Making the 990 Super Duke Track Ready – part 2 : Removing Indicators and Disconecting Lights
Before taking the KTM to the track I tapped up headlight and the tail light, removed the indicators and the mirrors.
Here are a few tips if you’re planning on doing the same.
Removing the mirrors is a no-brainer, just lift the rubber coating on the bottom of the steam and using a spanner unscrew the whole thing rotating counter-clockwise
My bike as a set of aftermarket indicators, and a tail tidy so removing the license plate and the rear indicators is a 30s task. Just disconect the connectors on the wires that run under the seat to the indicators, remove two screws on the license plate, and the whole thing comes off.
The front indicators are just as easy to remove, although take longer to reassemble. The wires that come from the indicators have been soldered to the original wiring and the conectors from the original wiring are to big to go through the nut that holds the indicator stem, so the only solution is cutting the wires. I’ll have to solder them again or use a set of electrical conectors when I assemble them again.
Open Sesame
The next thing I hade to do was disconect the front and rear lights, otherwise they would overheat the tape and the optic would be left full of glue residues from the tape at the end of the day. This, as I’ve found out is extremely easy to do on the Super Duke, just disconect a plug behind the headlight and another one under the seat and you’re done! No lights and the bike’s diagnostic system doesn’t even complain! Great job KTM! 🙂
Disconecting Headlight
Disconecting Tail Light
And here it is, no mirrors or indicators and ready to hit the track:
Making the 990 Super Duke Track Ready – part 1 : Fitting Crash Protection
As you may have read in my previous post I had ordered a full set of crash protectors for the KTM, after I canceled this order I searchd online a bit and ended up buying three separate kits from diferent sources:
– 1 Set of Front Fork Sliders from KTM Power Parts Catalogue (46€)
– 1 Set of Upper Frame Sliders (Crash Bobbins) from Evotech (113,98€)
– 1 Set of Swingarm Spools with bobbins from MCMOTOPARTS (20,78€)
The front fork sliders from KTM where again a dificult buy, first the guy at the store didn’t receive my email and so the ordered was delayed a week, then the set that arrived was the wrong one, luckily they had another set in stock (the right one) which they supplied me right at the last minute, the day before I went to Portimão.
The set itself is a new version, which is different from the one on the 2012 Catalogue and I’m not very impressed by it’s quality. Although I bought the specific version for the SuperDuke the set was clearly made to fit most KTM bikes, so instead of having a longer aluminum rod to fit the longer spacing between fork stanctions on the Super Duke, it comes with a longer collar bolt on one side.
This way both bobbins fit and are conected to each other, but the one on the left side of the bike is held only by the bolt (the aluminum rod isn’t long enough to reach recess on the inside of the plastic bobbin) and therefore it seems that in the event of a crash this left bobbins is more subject to ripping of (when the collar bolt bends or snaps) then the one on the right. I’m not sure if I made myself clear but bottomline: KTM for this price you could at least supply a set with a aluminum rod 2cm longer instead of a last minute fix with a collar bolt.
Fitting them is quite straightforward: just remove the nut on the left side of the axle and replace it with the new aluminium nut that comes with the kit. Be careful not to overtighten it, it’s supposed to be tightened to 40Nm so use a Dynamometric Wrench if you have one. Next just screwn the right bobbine to the aluminum rod an insert it trough the axle, then tighten the collar bolt on the left hand side. I use a bit of Bison Metal Lock to stop the screws from loosening with vibration.
After fitted this is how it looks:
As for the Crash Bobbins (Upper Frame Sliders) from Evotech I can only recommend them. The communication was excellent and the item arrived exactly when they said it would. It came neatly packed in individual bagsin a card box with lots of foam padding and has an added bonus they threw in a gift. A small LED flashlight. Great Costumer service!
Evotech Crash Bobbins
Gift Flashlight
The Bobbins itself consist of a aluminium milled bottom piece that fits in the place of two frame bolts (wich are replaced with longer ones).
The bobbins are an external polymer cylinder with a removable aluminum core that screws in the bottom piece. The whole thing is very nicely finished and looks really high quality.
Fitting them is quite easy as long has you have a good set of tools…which I haven’t and has the bolts on the frame where seized I had to request the assistance of my trusty mechanic to fit the Bobbins. But it basically consists in undoing the bolts that are on the frame and replacing them with the longer ones as you fit the bottom piece and then just screw the bobbins to it.
Finally the Swingarm Spools. They where shipped pretty quickly as I wasn’t expecting to receive them before going to portimão, but they ended up arriving (from Hong Kong) only a week and a half after I made the order. They look pretty good and are obviously the easiest to fit, just a drop of Bison Metal Lock and screw them to the swingarm!
The swingarm spools fitted
The Front Fork, Frame and Passenger Footpeg Sliders
The complete set of crash protectors fitted
CoyoteMoto – where not to buy online
A couple of weeks ago I ordered a full set of crash bobbins for the SuperDuke at Coyotemoto.com (check out this post).
I had contacted Coyotemoto a few months back trough their eBay store and gotten a quick answer so I thought they would be a good option, the prices helped the decision.
Well, I had read a few complaints online about their service (slow delivery, etc) but thought it was just one or two isolated cases. It seems it wasn’t, their service is second to none in terms of crappyness!
So this is what happened, bought and payed the full set of bobbins with Paypa (about 170€). Upon payment received and automatic email indicating my order number, and after that…nothing else!
I emailed them the next day asking about the estimated delivery date: no awnser. Tried emailing them again a few days later trough their online form: no awnser. Again a few days later tried calling them on the phone: no one answered.
Still, I persisted and sent another email: you can guess the outcome… No awnser!
Finally lost my patience and openness a dispute on PayPal, again trying to contact CoyoteMoto, as they continued without responding I escalated the dispute to a claim and the good fellows at PayPal gave me back my money the next day!!
Thank you Paypal!!
In the meantime I’ve lost almost 3 weeks and I need a set of crash bobbins before the 21stJuly (because of the advanced riders course on track on the 28th). I’ve just ordered a new set (upper bobbins only) from Evotech. Hopefully this will go a lot better!
Of you’re in the market for a set of crash protectors for your bike, I definitely do not recommend CoyoteMoto.com,
I don’t know why they ignored all of my communications, if they went out of business, on vacations or whatever, but it is unacceptable to do this, taking your client’s money and not giving any explanation. Not cool!
Upgrades for the KTM SuperDuke
The Advanced Riding Course at AIA (Portimão) is litle more than a month away, so it’s time to get Karen some upgrades and crash protection (wich hopefully won’t be needed).
To help with the wind blast, I ordered KTMs Touring windshield, the standard wind deflector looks good but it’s useless at speeds above 170km/h, so hopefully this will help a litle.
The Touring Windshield costed 59€ and I’ve already fitted it, altough I haven’t had time to ride the bike to try it out. As soon as I do, I’ll update this post with a my first impressions.
The Standard and Touring Windshield side by side
Before and After
Also from KTMs Power Parts Catalogue came the passenger footpeg sliders, two small pieces of TPU plastic that costed 18,45€ and are suposed to minimize the damage to the rear of the bike in case of a spill. Fiting them required the use of a hammer to remove the pin that holds the footpeg. Even with the help of WD40, the pins was insisting it didn’t want to leave it’s place, so I had to hammer it out.
The Pin, locking ring and side plates of the foot peg.
The slider fits to the bottom of the footpeg
The footpeg retains full functionality.
I’ve also ordered a full set of crash bobbins (front axle, rear axle, Upper front frame sliders and lower front frame sliders) from Coyote Moto, wich costed around 170€. Still waiting for them to arrive, when they do, I’ll post the fitting process.
Finally got around to replacing the LEDs
UPDATE MAY 2012
One of the LEDs died again after only a couple of rides, so I’ve removed them and gone back to the original bulbs.
Tried a set of blue lightbulbs to see if I liked the set up, but the light was really blue and not white/blueish as intended so trashed those bulbs too.
Here is a pic
Blue lightbulb on the right standard one on the left.
Conclusion – Wedge LEDs are a piece of crap, just stick with te standard running lights
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
TEXT BEFORE UPDATE
Like I said in the previous post, one of the Wedge LEDs died just 30min after being installed. Well it seems the other one wasn’t that great either has it’s just died last week.
This is how the ZZR looked like
I’ve installed two new Wedge LEDs of the same brand, which I hope will last longer, although I haven’t got much hope.
Not sure if the reason why the first ones lasted so little was due to bad electrical connection (they where a little loose on the socket) so this time I opened up the LED contact wires a bit to make them fit tighter
And finally!
Installing HID Xenon Kit & Wedge (T10) LED on the ZZR 1400
Finally finished installing Xenon HID kit on my ZZR, after a few set backs which included snapping one of the bulbs and finding a faulty cam gasket on the bike which was leaking oil. SO now that everything is fixed and the HID are finally in I’ll try to write a small tutorial of how I did it (and how not to do it…)
First of all I have to thank Nemesis from Bikevis for his tutorial which was fundamental in helping me fit the HID kit on my bike. Check it out :
Let’s get to business, this is how the ZZR looks like with standard lights:
The dipped beams on the ZZR are two H11 type bulbs, so I ordered a car HID Xenon kit with 6000K H11 bulbs and slim ballasts of eBay.
Start by removing the underside tray, below the lights, above the front fender. This comes out by removing one screw and two rivets. Check the user manual to see the correct way of removing the rivets without damaging them (by pulling the inner pin first) or if you have already removed the air duct covers you can try and push the pins out from the inside.
Here you have the H11 dipped beam lights that we’re going to replace
And the H9 high beams that I’ll be leaving standard
The air duct covers can be easily removed by unscrewing the three small bots. That way you get easier access to the bulbs and undersid tray of the fairing, as well as a place to place the ballasts. In the next picture you can see a small silver bracket, this will be removed later on to replace the signal lights by the Wedge LEDs.
The first step is to remove the existing H11 bulbs. Disconnect the wiring by releasing the small tab the holds the latch and then remove the bulb itself by rotating counter-clockwise and then pulling it out gently when it comes loose. Be careful not to break the bulb while pulling it out.
This is the Standard Bulb, there are two of them, one on each side of the bike.
Next you can prepare the new bulbs to be installed. Carefully cut out the rubber grommet that holds the wires together and them install each of the bulbs in their socket on the bike being extra carefull not to hit the bulb with anything in the process. Also make sure you don’t touch the glass of the bulb with your hands or skin as the residue it would leave can later cause the bulb to overheat and burst. The bulbs will snap in place by rotating them clockwise in the socket.
Now you need to find a place to fit the ballasts, I placed mine in the small tray that sits beneath the air ducts, used a piece of heavy duty velcro to keep them from sliding about and secured the cables to the air ducts and existing wire loom using zip ties.
In the next picture you can see the tray I was talking about, below the air ducts. You don’t need to remove the side fairing of the bike (and if you do make sure you don’t take it out like I did, the fairing comes off easier in one piece: painted top half + black bottom half). My fairing is removed because I took the opportunity to re-route the wiring for my heated grips
Connect all the wires and start up the bike to see if the bulbs and ballasts work.
In this pictures only one of the HID is in place.
Standard Bulbs
One Standard bulb + One HID
This was the point when it all went wrong because of a stupid mistake I made. Always make sure all the wires are well routed and nothing gets in the way of the steering. I forgot to chcek this properly so while moving the bike in the garage one of the leads got caught by the fork stanction and ripped the bulb out of the socket. luckily it was the bulb that snapped and not the socket from the bike’s optic.
Here you can see the snapped bulb wit the broken plastic inserts.
This minor acident made me have to wait for one week with the bike stopped in the garage before I could get a replacement bulb. Furthermore, in the mean time I found an oil leak on the Cam gasket which delayed even further his process, but right now I’ll just jump to the installation of the Wedge LEDs and the finish work.
Here you an see the final placement of the ballasts and wires. The fairing is completely removed because of the cam cover gasket problem, not the HID installation.
The Wedge LEDs or T10 LEDs are small bulbs that place the signal/parking lights (the small lights that sit higher in the ZZR front fairing). You can buy them of the intenet, I bought them at a local “Chinese Shop” for 2,5€ the pair.
To install them, first remove the silver bracket on the left and right hand side of the upper fairing next to the dials. Disconect the wiring from the bulb hol by gently squeezing the plug and pulling it outwards, next remove the bulb holder by rotating anti-clockwise. the small bulb comes out of the holder by simply pulling it out.
Here you have one of the standard bulbs next to the LED ones.
The LEDs are polarity sensitive so after placing them in the holder recomect the wire and turn on the bike to see if they light up, if not, just take them out and put them back in the holder in the oposite position.
This is how the LED (on the right of the picture) looks like comparing with the standard bulb.
Do the same on the other side, make sure all the wires are properly routed and organized, reassemble all the bits qnd pieces and you’re done!
Here is the final result (the color of both bulbs is slightly different because of the problem I had when I broke one of them, but I later also replaced the first one so that they are now exactly the same.)
Crappy mechanic
I received the xenon HID Kit I had ordered a few days ago, so today I decided to assemble it on the bike.
All was going well until… I made a stupid beginner’s mistake and forgot to check if the cables weren’t pulling on anything!
Result: while moving the bike to put in position for a photo, the fork sanctions pulled the wires while turning the bike and ripped the bulb out of the socket!
Now the bike is there half naked waiting for the replacement bulbs I just ordered of ebay!
Damn!
New Brake and Clutch Levers for Muni
The new set of brake and clutch levers finally arrived.
I ordered a black set with burgundy red adjusters in standard size. They’re actually a litle shorter then the OEM levers but that’s what I wanted, slightly shorter but not too much.
The fit and finish is quite good for the price.
Replacing the original levers for the new ones, is not a very hard task, it only requires taking out one screw. However due to the lack of available space between the lever and the air duct fairing I had to loosen the entire brake and clutch assembly to gain some space to work.
The first one took about 15min to get in, while I was still trying to understand how to fit it. The second one was a lot easier and only took me about 5min to replace.
OEM ClutchLever
OEM Brake Lever
And here she is with the new levers on:
Xenon HID kit
Been postponing the replacement of the standard bulbs on the ZZR for a set of Xenon HIDs almost since I bought her, but now, with the prices much lower than a couple years ago I decided to order a set with two bulbs and slim ballasts from eBay to replace the dip-beams.
I’ll have to wait a few weeks for it to arrive. When they do I’ll try and write a complete review of the installation process.
In the meantime, you can check this great tutorial another rider published: ZZR1400 HID an Wedge LED install
New Aluminium Brake & Clutch Lever
Hi
Just ordered a new set of Regular Size Clutch and Brake Lever for the ZZR.
Went for the Black version with Red Adjuster, and in Regular size because altough I only use two fingers on the brake, I tend to use 3 or 4 on the clutch so was afraid the short version would be uncomfortable to use. Even so I think this “Regular” version is shorter then the massive OEM levers.
Now it’s just waiting for the order to arrive! 😉
ZZR 1400 Touring 