Brrr…. It’s still chilly in dear old Blighty and probably will be for a few months at least, handy (ahem) then that some bikes are equipped with heated grips from new and better still: if your bike doesn’t have them, you can get them fitted cheaply and easily…
We here at CB-Net reckon that heated grips should be fitted as standard for UK bikes – kinda like UK cars having to be right-hand drive! But did you know that the original idea for heated grips came from an American? Perish the thought!
The American in question was Jim Hollander. Jim was a bloody handy off road rider and – back in 1976 – he was about to do the International Six Day Trial as part of the team from the USA. This would be his fifth and final time as member of the team and – by this point – he knew what he would be facing and knew what could affect his performance in the event: cold hands…
Yup, cold hands mean you can’t feel what you’re doing with the controls and this is vital in a sport like trials where a delicate touch with throttle, clutch and brake is needed. With the idea for ‘heated handlebar grips’ firmly in his head, Jim went to work…
But… it took some time, around five years in fact, because Jim went back to school and undertook a mechanical engineering degree. Jim spent his spare time designing and developing his HOT GRIPS as he called them. After much effort and re-design they would be used in the International Six Day Trial event which had inspired them. American team rider Jeff Freddette would use a version of Jim’s HOT GRIPS in the 1981 event.
Over this side of the Atlantic, our own Oxford Products began making their own version (HotGrips) in 1980 and they cost a whopping £45: today – despite almost 40 years of development – the basic models cost about the same.
Originally these were simply a plastic tube with some element wire wound around it, with a non-slip rubber grip stretched over that and a simple on and off switch, attached to the motorcycle’s battery for power.
Today they are much more intricate and sophisticated and – thanks to the miniaturisation of electronics – they are less bulky, can pump out much more heat, have many different settings are controlled by a small digital thermostat and come in many different versions for scooters, tourers, nakeds, sportsbikes and cheap ones for commuters/winter hacks…
Problems: well, if you are a bit mechanically inept, you’ll wire them direct to the battery rather than the ignition, so if you forget to turn them off, your battery goes flat! Back in the day the grips were bulky and you could feel the difference: today’s grips are of a much thinner gauge.
So what about Jim Hollander? He still makes his HOT GRIPS and they’ve since been used on quad bikes, all ATVs, mechanical diggers, bulldozers, fork-lift trucks and micro-light aircraft!
