Gerbings Heated Jacket

I got mine from Pricedright from whom I have bought several things and I find them to be a pretty good and helpful dealer.

Gerbings jacket

When I was in Patagonia, I traveled for days wearing “thermal type” clothing and generally felt fairly happy with my choice. However, having seen how many of my fellow rides were using electrically heated jackets I started to think about getting one when I returned to the UK in December 2007. Slightly paradoxically perhaps, a heated jacket makes more sense for me in this country than Patagonia. Here I often go out on the bike for an hour or two rather than spending dawn to dusk on the bike and in these circumstances, it is nice not to have to dress up specially with layers of thermal gear. Instead, I can sling the Gerbings jacket on over my shirt and get straight into my riding suit. The jacket provides enough warmth even on the coldest days I have so far encountered. I wanted a jacket rather tan just a vest because a vest doesn’t heat the arms. Some people try to persuade you that if your core is warm (ie your trunk, then the rest of you will stay warm. This is utter bollocks and especially my upper arms which are exposed to the breeze on a bike more than almost any other bodypart, get cold even when my chest and back are warm.

The jacket’s collar covers the neck well which is nice and it is quite comfortable – in fact, it is hardly noticeable when wearing it.

I got an XL size which is a bit too big for me (I have a 44″ chest) but fortunately, this doesn’t seem to impair its function but if buying again, I’d get a size smaller.

The only real drawback to using an electric jacket is dealing with the rheosat that is needed to control its temperature. I tend to carry mine in one of the pockets of my riding suit with wires leading from that to the connector on the bike and round under the riding suit jacket’s lower hem to the Gerbings underneath. This works but it’s a bit of a fiddle and makes it hard to actually adjust the temperture when riding. I could mount it on the bike with velcro or 3M’s “mushroom fastener” tape which would make it easier to adjust for the price of having an ugly bit of tape showing on the bike when it’s not being used.

Where the wire for the power supply exits the jacket lining, a grommet has pulled loose from the lining which is a potential source of weakness in the jacket lining material in future. I suspect it’s my faut for getting off the bike on occasions without remembering to unplug myself first – in which circumstance there will have been a hefty tug on the wire and a connector that used to be hidden inside the jacket (which splits the power cable in two at that point) has stressed the grommet attachment once too often.

I rate this jacket 8/10 on my rather arbitrary goodness scale.