You know those days where the thought of even going outside, never mind riding your scooter is enough to freeze your knackers off? Well this is the one item of kit that will restore your shrivelled manhood and make you want to get out and ride again.
What is it?
The heated vest simply plugs into your scooters battery (if it has one) or can be connected to a 12v charger socket (Mod Charger etc.) if no battery is available. There’s another option and that’s to buy a vest with built in lithium battery, rather than a plug in type (Oxford do one of those as well).
The vest is extremely lightweight and can be used as just another layer, even without plugging it in but as soon as the temperature drops you can press the four-position heat controller, put your feet up and relax in the cosiest garment known to scootering. If it gets a bit colder just crank the heat up, and you’ll be toasty in no time. It’s so good that I might just go out for a ride to save having to put the central heating on this morning.
How does it work?
The three large ultra thin stainless steel heating elements within the vest warm up quickly and provide plenty of heat to your chest, back and collar. The vest is a compression fit so the heat is transferred directly to the body, that in turn heats the blood around the core and it gets pumped around the body. Because the blood is warmer it helps to keep the whole body warm, even those pesky fingers and toes. I swear by mine and it gets used a lot more often than you’d expect, if the weather turns nasty during summer it’s nice to have something that can instantly warm you up when you’re wearing a thin summer jacket. The vest is small enough to stick in a bag or beneath a seat so it’s no hardship to carry it around.
Lab report
I can’t over emphasise just how good this vest is, I love it. To give you an example, I landed at Gatwick Airport at 1am in January last year. The pilot announced over the tannoy that it was -6 outside and I had a three-hour ride back home on a Vespa GTS. Admittedly I still felt the cold during the ride but without the vest I’d have been stopping at every services to warm up under the hand drier. As it was I managed with just a couple of petrol stops and even though my fingers were cold by the time I arrived home it was still much more bearable than it could have been. The time when you really realise just how much warmer it keeps your hands is when you ride a scooter in winter without the vest when you’ve been used to using one, within ten miles my fingers feel like they’ll drop off and the journey isn’t anywhere near as pleasant. £149.99 very well spent.
Website: www.oxprod.com
Lab rating: 10
