The Best Heated Motorcycle Grips

The five heat settings are what you'll actually use. Rider Magazine's cold-weather gear testers found that grips with at least four levels give riders more usable control than two-setting kits. That matters on a commute that starts at dawn and ends in warm afternoon sun. You step down from five to two instead of pulling the plug. The redesigned controller does the stepping, and it's small enough to tuck near the clutch perch.

The thermistor is the quieter upgrade. Instead of dumping a fixed amount of power into the wire, these grips scan the grip temperature and hold it, so a headwind doesn't drag your hands back toward numb. There's an auto shut-off and a battery-saving mode too. That's useful if you're the kind of person who leaves the key on while you dig out your gloves and answer a text.

Current draw stays under four amps, per Oxford's own spec. That's low enough that most stock 12-volt systems won't notice. RevZilla's Common Tread puts typical quality grips at 20 to 40 watts each, a load most bikes carry without a stator upgrade. If you also run a heated jacket liner, ADV Pulse suggests wiring the pair through a dedicated fused relay rather than tapping the stock harness twice.

Fitment is narrow in one way and generous in another. The bar has to be 22mm, which covers most street, sport and adventure bikes, and the grip body measures 132mm and 122mm, so it clears a standard throttle tube. Cycle World's gear writers make the same point about sizing: match the factory bar diameter or the grip works loose and wears early. Measure before you order.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The install is where owners lose patience. Feedback repeatedly describes the wiring as the easy half and the grips themselves as the fight, especially getting the Adventure-size body seated on the throttle tube. Plan on an afternoon and a heat gun, not a lunch break.

Quality control isn't spotless either. Some owners report kits arriving without the controller hardware, and a few report one grip that never heats at all. Oxford's dealer network handles that, but it means you should install these well before the first cold snap, not the morning of it.

Choose between this and the Evo Adventure mostly on what you're riding. Both give you five heat levels and sealed connectors. This one is sized as an ATV grip, so the body is chunkier and shaped for gloved hands on wide bars. On a quad working through cold mud, that shape is the one you want. On a sportbike, it isn't.

The LED level indicator is a small thing you'll appreciate at speed. Each setting lights its own marker, so you know where you are without counting button presses or looking away for long. Oxford also lists sonic welding and miniaturised electronics on this kit. That's the boring engineering that keeps water out of the housing after a few seasons of spray and pressure washing.

Wiring is simpler than on older Heaterz kits, and the connectors are waterproof, which matters more on a quad than almost anywhere else. Owner feedback here skews positive and mentions few of the seating headaches that follow the Adventure model. It's still a couple of hours of work with the bars stripped, so set aside a real block of time.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It's an ATV kit, and Oxford means that. If your bike wears slim bars and a narrow throttle tube, this isn't the Heaterz you want. Check the size on the box before you buy, because the family name covers several very different grip bodies.

The listing is also thin on hard numbers. Oxford doesn't publish a wattage figure here the way it publishes a current draw for the Evo, so you're trusting the family reputation rather than a spec you can size a fuse around.

You already have grips you like. Maybe they're a soft compound, maybe they came with the bike and your hands stopped noticing them years ago. Heat Demon elements work under what's there, so nothing about the feel of your controls changes much. That's the whole pitch. For a lot of riders, it's enough.

The wiring is the easiest part of any kit here. Symtec builds the harness with weatherproof connectors rated for road spray and winter riding, so you're joining sealed ends rather than crimping your own in a cold garage. The round rocker switch mounts wherever your thumb can find it. There's no controller module to find real estate for on an already crowded handlebar.

How much heat reaches your palm depends partly on what's over the element. A thick, hard grip insulates; a thinner one passes more through. Common Tread makes the same point about grip construction mattering as much as raw wattage, and it cuts both ways here. Pair these with a thinner grip and more of that heat gets to your hand.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

A rocker switch is on or off. There's no stepping down when the day warms up, so you'll flip it off, get cold, and flip it back on. Ultimate Motorcycling's winter roundup makes the same point about budget kits in general: single-setting control is the compromise you're accepting.

Installation is fiddlier than it sounds, too. Getting old grips off without wrecking them takes patience, a long zip tie and usually compressed air, and the elements have to sit flat or you'll feel hot spots. Common Tread pegs a typical grip install at one to three hours, and this one lands squarely in that window.

Your thumb goes numb first, and this is the only kit here that treats that as its own problem. The adhesive silicone warmer sits where your thumb rests, and the dual-zone controller runs it at a different level than the grips. Hotgrips makes the same argument for splitting palm and finger circuits: put the heat where your hand loses it fastest, not evenly across everything.

The clamp-on design means you keep your grips. The heated shells fit over 7/8-inch bars on any ATV, and the kit ships with the hardware and wiring you need, so there's no second trip for connectors you didn't know you'd want. For plenty of riders that's the difference between doing this on a Saturday and putting it off another season.

Power draw is stated plainly: 45 watts maximum, 20 per grip and 5 for the thumb warmer. That sits on the light end of what Common Tread describes as normal for quality grips, so a healthy stock charging system should shrug it off. If you're already running a heated liner, ADV Pulse still suggests a dedicated fused relay rather than stacking loads.

Owner feedback on this kit is unusually consistent for the category, and unusually calm. The recurring themes are that it keeps working in real cold and that the controller survives the winter. That's the boring outcome you want from something bolted to a handlebar and rained on for months.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It's built and sold for ATVs, and the clamp-on shells add diameter. On a motorcycle with a normal throttle tube, that extra thickness can make the grip feel fat and can slow throttle return. Check the clearance before you commit to it.

Twenty watts a grip is on the low side. In hard cold with thin gloves, you'll want handguards to block the wind, because an element can only add so much heat to a surface that highway air keeps stripping away.