A'ME Heated Grips For Mountain Bikes

Recently the Cyclistsite received a pair of grips that are somewhat unique. Heated grips. Yes, wires and all. What would be the appeal of such a product? Well, besides the obvious cold weather benefits, the grips actually are something like a heating pad for your paws. making the hands loosen up, feel less pain, in some instances, and obviously, providing a great grip.

Everything to heat your mitts is here.The grips are made by A'ME Grips, the company most recognizable by cyclists as a maker of BMX grips. However; A'ME also makes grips for ATV's, motorcycles, golf clubs, and more.

A'ME has recently started to produce these heated mtb grips and will also add a drop bar specific variant of these soon. What I've shown here is actually four different products meant to be used together. [Note:  This is updated/reduced pricing as of 5/9/11]

- Battery Pack MSRP $170.00 $89.00

- Battery Charger $39.95 $26.00

- Clamp-On MTB Heated 1.3 Tri Grips MSRP $129.95 $80.00

- Battery Mounting Kit MSRP $10.70 $4.00 (Mounts battery to bike)

The system is something like a higher end set of lights, only without the light units! It has grips instead. Let's take a closer look at just what is going on with these. They are pretty high tech, not just simply a heated grip with no bells and whistles.

• Lithium-Polymer battery, 11.1V, encased in impact resistant plastic. 335gm, A'ME's "DuxButt" connectors which are weather-proof.
• Battery charger is specific to A'ME battery pack. Charges depleted battery in 4 hours. "DuxButt" connectors. Runs off 110V current.
• Battery Mountain Kit: Has two rubber fitted pieces to alow different battery mounting options. Attach with provided Velcro strap.
• Heated 1.3 Tri-Grip: Grip features micro processor technology and internal sensors that allow adjustment of each grip to any of the six temperature settings. "DuxButt" connectors. Locking collar on inner part of grip.

A pulsating blue LED tells you what heat level you are at.The grips themselves feature a button on each grip that riders can toggle through each of the six heat settings. When you push the button, the light next to the button will blink in quick succession the number of times that correspond to the heat level desired. So, for instance, if you hit the button, and the LED flashes twice, this is the second from the coolest setting, and so on up to six flashes, which indicates the hottest heated setting.

Installation and Use: The grips themselves are easily mounted, and lock on with a traditional Allen key fastener. You have the leads coming out of the inside of the grips towards the stem, and the "DuxButt" connectors at the ends of these. They plug into matching leads on the battery pack which can be mounted on your bike using one of the two rubber mounts that the mounting kit comes with, which then is secured to your frame, stem, or handle bar with the Velcro strap. The leads on the grips and battery are long enough to allow mounting the battery in several places. You may want to use a few Velcro pump straps to secure the loose leads if you run the battery closer to the grips, which would leave quite a bit of slack in the leads to deal with. Otherwise, once a heat level has been selected, you just ride normally.

The battery mounted well back on the top tube here.Performance Notes And Comments: The heat comes on fairly quickly once you select a setting. The feeling is like that of using a heating pad, or an electric blanket. The heat seemed to really go deep into my hands. I selected the hottest setting on my first ride which was on a cool, 30 degree commute. The heat was far more than I needed, so I stopped and toggled it back a few steps to a lower setting. I was wearing summer weight gloves, which wouldn't keep even the slightest breeze out, and my hands were toasty all the way into work.

One of the criticisms we thought about here at The Cyclistsite was that windchill may be a bit of an issue for the outside of the hand, since the only heated part was the grip and that against your palm. Taking that into cosideration, I think one only would need a windproof glove and all would be fine. Really, I could have ridden without gloves on the sub-freezing commutes I used these grips on, but obviously, colder weather might require a barrier to the wind.

The grips have a very tacky feel. Even unheated.

 The feel of the grips is tacky, even unheated, but while using in heat mode, they do not get softer, or any more sticky than they are. These would probably work really well in wetter climes or whenever maximum grip in cold weather is desired. I'm not a huge fan of round grips, preferring ergonomic designs available today, but these felt forgiving and soft enough that they weren't bad at all. Grips are definitely a personal thing, but these should work for a lot of folks. They are not really thin, but not as thick as some other popular grips are. The length is spot on, and the locking collar worked perfectly on my Bontrager Crivitz aluminum bar.

Run time on the battery is said to be approximately 2 hours. A'ME says you'll get the best run times on carbon bars, and that due to the fact that carbon is a poor heat conductor, so the battery won't be working hard to heat up a metal handle bar. My experience was that I got about two round trips out of a battery on my commute, which is approximately 10 miles total. Carbon bars would have extended this run time a bit.

My criticisms of this system are few. The button to toggle the power settings is tough to hit with an un-gloved hand, and gloved, well, you can probably guess it is nigh unto impossible. It would be nice to have an easily accessible, easy to hit button that you could use on the fly. That said, these are probably a "set it and forget it" component once you get going, so it may be a moot point for many folks.

The grips compound is soft, and may wear sooner than some, although I have no way to test this now. That said, replacement grip units can be purchased to replace worn or torn grips. It might be nice to see a replaceable grip cover from A'ME instead of having to buy complete grip units, but the nature of the construction of these grips may not allow for such a luxury.

Finally, and obviously, price is a barrier here. At just north of 300 bucks, these are probably out of the reach of a lot of cyclists budgets, and definitely beyond anything they might perceive as a reasonable price for grips. [News Flash....since the time we wrote this, pricing has been refined and reduced to a total of $199.00 (the prices listed above are the new ones) The Editors.]  Even ones that are heated.

Conclusions: The A'ME Heated Grips For Mountain Bikes do what they are advertised to do. They give off a deep heating feel that is settable to whatever level you need for comfort. I find once my hands and feet are warm, I can go a long way in cold weather. To that end, these grips are definitely worthwhile to consider. However; you have to really want to ride in cold weather and have issues with cold hands that prevent you from doing so before the price starts to make any sense here. Pogies, or "bar mitts", are a really inexpensive and effective, albeit clunky, way to battle the cold. I don't really like pogies, and these grips make a lot of sense to my mind for snow biking, or year round commuting.

This is an amazingly good product that would be very popular if the barrier of price could be significantly lowered [If you have been reading, they were! The Editors]. As it is, they probably will remain a dream for most cold weather going cyclists.