Review: Gerbing's heated liner - first ride

I bought a Gerbing's heated liner a few weeks ago. I bought it directly from Gerbing.com. Many other places that sell the Gerbing's liner don’t even sell the size I needed and when I checked around all the other places were selling them at the same price.



My liner is a size 38/28

The liner was $199
The temperate controller was $69
The accessory plug was $15



The temperature controller plugs in to the liner and connects to the accessory plug, which plugs in to the bike



This past weekend was my fist ride wearing the Gerbing's heated liner. After 875 miles and two full days of riding and wearing the Gerbing's heated liner I have to report that I am very happy with my purchase. The Gerbing's liner kept me much warmer then my Widder electric vest ever could, and not just because the Widder is a vest and the Gerbing's is a full sleeved liner. The Gerbing's heats up more then my Widder and with the added heat of the heated sleeves it keeps me warm all over. I especially noticed that with the heated sleeves, my hands stay warmer longer so I don’t have to use the heated grips as much.

When I used to use the Widder vest, I still had to bundle up a few layers to stay warm. With my Gerbing's liner all I had on was a long sleeve shirt, the Gerbing's liner and my jacket and I was comfortable even with the temperatures in the upper 40’s.

I’m going to try and compare my Widder vest to the Gerbing's liner for some people that are thinking of switching from a Widder vest to a full sleeved Gerbing liner.

My Widder vest is the previous model and I never did buy a temperature controller for it. All I had was an on and off switch. The vest never got so hot that I would have to turn it off, so when I used it I’d usually just keep it on for a while. So I never thought the temperature controller was really necessary. This past weekend riding in the upper 40’s my Gerbing's was on at about the half way setting, when I switched it to full the liner turned so hot I had to turn it down immediately. The thing really heat up.

The Gerbing's liner has a few large cords running through the liner and sleeves. You can feel them in there, but actually they didn’t bother me when I was wearing the liner. In the Widder I never felt any wires.

I would have liked for the Gerbing's liner to be a bit longer especially in the back. It did ride up on me at times especially while leaned forward. The Gerbing's has this elastic knit type waistband once it moves up it stays up, but the material is not that thick or poofy. The Widder was longer and vest is kind of thick and poofy, it stayed put.

Also, the plastic square on the Gerbing's liner where the cords plug in to, I can feel it when I’m wearing the liner, but again it doesn’t bother me. it’s a bit larger then the plug area on the Widder. Another ncie thing on the Widder cord, it’s coiled, the Gerbing's cord is straight and long so you kind of have to tied with a rubber band so it doesn‘t flap in the wind.



Gerbing's liner



Widder Vest

I’m getting used to the temperature controller on the gerbing I guess I would like it to have numbers on the dial instead of the red light. When the Gerbing's liner is on, the red light lights up. On the low setting the red light blinks slowly, on higher setting the red light blinks faster and full heat setting the red light stays on continuously. You have to look at the temperature controller for a while to figure out if it’s blinking fast or slow. If the dial had a number on it just one quick glance could tell you what setting it’s on.

The Gerbing's liner is not very bulky and I really do like the high zipped up collar, it does keep the wind off the neck. Overall I’m very happy with the product so far, mainly because it does keep me a lot warmer and that is the whole point of heated gear.