Have been looking at Oxford and other makes of grip for a few months now but I was over at the Adventure Bike Shop in Acton (nr Sudbury) the other day and came across the Keis (AME) Chicane heated grips and immediately thought "that's a good idea"....
The good idea is that all the electronics are in the grip itself and that means individual heating control (think about it). Now this might not sound much to you but my left hand is always colder than the right and as they have 6 heat settings its 3 on the right and 4 or 5 on the left..... Toasty finger tips all round....
First off - in the box are.... the grips (which have a soft and slightly tacky feel), the lead that connects them to the battery.... and that's all folks.... No bulky controller taking up handlebar space, or hanging off the mirror mount etc....
Each grip has a little button and a tiny, but bright, blue light. Press once... One flash.... First heat... Press twice.... Two flashes etc up to the top setting of six.
The led also slowly varies in brightness to show its warming up.
The grips themselves are slightly barrel shaped and, to me, fit better in the hand than "normal" grips and with light summer gloves there is no problem pressing the little button on the go but with thicker or winter gloves its difficult... but not impossible. If you wire these straight to the battery then this could be a pain in turning down the heat if you find them to hot.
The grips are designed to auto shut off when the voltage drops to 12 point something so in theory when you turn the engine off and the grips should go off by themselves so you do not get a flat battery but I would suggest having an off switch somewhere..... just to be safe.... not stranded....
As the Uly has its heated grips controlled but the right hand switchgear I just spliced into the wiring and he presto I can either use the little button or turn off and on by the switch, same as the originals.... Cool..... or should that be hot....
The throttle side grip is also the throttle tube and has six different cam ends for the cables so its just a case of unhook the cables of your old throttle tube.... match up the cam end piece and snap it on (simple) hook on the cables and that's it..... No damage or need to cut off/ destroy your grip etc.... and if you don't like the new grip just put your old one back on.... simples....
The clutch side also has an inner sleeve (which is a nice tight fit to the bars) with an aluminium band that secures the grip to the bar by means of an Allen bolt. This does work really well but I did not like the extra distance this meant between grip and switchgear.... So I removed the band, cut off the excess tube, and used a dab of glue so I now have a flush fit and no problem reaching the switchgear (big palms and short fingers so don't get me started on getting gloves to fit properly). In case your thinking... Glue... I have a set of Acerbis dual road guards fitted so the grip cannot slide off...
So far I have only done a few short trips, and its not been that cold here this winter so I will update (and add photos) as time, and the miles, go on...
But my initial thoughts are - love the soft tacky feel that requires almost no effort to hold - less vibration getting through, compared to the original Buell grips and, for me, money well spent, as they are not the cheapest grips out there.
Update.... 07/03/2014
Just covered 200 odd miles today and must say these grip are com.....for........table........ No effort to hold and definitely smooth out the vibes... Have taken a couple of photos with the nexus 7 but cannot seem to get them on here so it may have to wait another couple of days to when I'm back home.
Had a play with changing the heat settings on the go - no problems using midwieght gloves but might rotate the throttle side grip to see the led better at (cough) cruising speed's....
The grips feel very much like the "Gel" ProGrips I have used in the past and I hope they are just as long lived.... time will tell....
Update....25/03/2015
Well folks its a year and almost 10,000 miles later
and the grips are getting a shine in places but with littlelose of the original "tacky" feel; there still soft, comfortable and needing very little effort to hold.
Winter was not to bad in this neck of the woods but as the wind was bl**dy freezing most of the time the grips got a lot of use and gave no problems.
In fact the only time I had a problem setting the temperature, with gloves, was when I was trying to show someone how easy it was.... typical......
Anyway.... final thought..... these are not the cheapest option but are very well made and I do not regret fitting them one little bit.
Update 10th Sept 2016
18 months and several thousand more miles on the Uly...
As with my Knight Design pegs review. I could put a couple of photos on here but they would not show any difference...
I would say that the "grey" is getting darker, maybe its a little UV damage or a natural over time thing... more likely is from greasy fingerprints when working on the bike... But either way it does not really seem to affect or degrade the grip...
I would say they are less "sticky" but not in any way that affects how easy these are to hold...
And even after all the miles there is very little rub off of material... ie no "bits" on your hands if you ride without gloves....
And overall they are still a thousand times better than the originals, which felt like smooth plastic at the mileage these have now done...
Would I buy another pair if these packed up/split... Yes...
Love the fact that these have no extra box on the handlebars and, highly. suggest that you keep all the supplied bits, and your original throttle tube n grip...
As if you have these and change your bike... you might just want to refit them...
Happy Riding All
P
