[American Motorcyclist Association] - AMA Member Tested: Warm & Safe Heated Jacket

[Ninjette Newsbot]

Versatile Heated Jacket

MSRP: $239.95
www.warmnsafe.com/generation-4-womens-heated-liner/

By Lisa Malachowsky



I’ve been riding for over 30 years, and I have lived in areas where riding with heated clothing was a requirement if you wanted to extend your riding season. When I moved from Northern California to Arizona, I packed my heated gear in storage. That was almost six years ago, and I’ve only used it once when I was riding in Montana at altitude. Come this past December, some of our mornings in Arizona dipped down to 37 degrees, which gave me the opportunity to put Warm & Safe’s Generation 4 Women’s Heated Liner to the test.

Years ago, my first heated gear was a vest, but my arms always got quite cold, and there was little to no adjustment on the amount of heat it delivered. In the early 2000s, I graduated to a FirstGear jacket designed by Warm & Safe.

This Generation 4 Jacket proved that it is a piece of equipment that has gone through testing and time in the saddle. It generates 90 watts of heat using something the company calls “Soft Heat Pure Science Heating Method.” It has reflective piping to be seen better at night and reflective material at the neck.

When you size this jacket, you will want it to be snug so that the anti-bacterial stretch panels will keep heat against your body as intended. It is a breathable shell with wind stop and moisture block.

It is intended to be used with the Warm & Safe “Heat-troller,” which is a controller designed to regulate the temperature delivered to the jacket. The Heat-troller was easy to use. I stuck it in the top of my tank bag so I could easily reach it with my left hand and adjust the temperature while riding.

There is polar fleece inside the neck to keep your neck area comfortable and avoid chafing with the jacket fully zipped while riding. There are several zippered panels that hide plugs for adding heated pants and heated gloves to the jacket if you feel like you need more warmth when riding in extreme cold. For me, these add a little bulk to the jacket, but if I were in Alaska or Canada, I wouldn’t complain about them and would probably use them regularly!

You will feel more heat generated in the front of the jacket. This is intentional because this jacket is made for riding. I adjusted my windscreen all the way down so I could get a cold burst of air on me while riding and turned the Heat-troller up a little when testing it. It’s also recommended that you wear a moisture-wicking layer underneath, so that if you do perspire, it will evaporate better.

The coolest thing about this jacket is its versatility. It can be used both on and off the bike. For off-the-bike power, you get a 7.4-volt, 7.8-amp battery and an adapter cable allows you to hook 12-volt motorcycle jacket products to the remote battery. I tested this while walking my dogs in the morning on another 38-degree day. The battery is a little bigger than an iPhone and won’t fit in its own pocket easily, but it does come with a handy belt clip. The battery lasted a solid hour (specifications state it should last at least three hours). It will not, however, heat to 90 watts, as it would when the jacket is running off the 12-volt source of a motorcycle battery.

Warm & Safe offers a wide variety of jackets, pants, gloves, glove liners and socks that are all heated. Their size ranges are well defined and also include tall offerings. As you can imagine, it is a product line up that covers motorcycling in cold, inclement weather very well and also stretches the value of your product purchase to uses beyond just motorcycling.



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