Tecno Globe Gold Premium Heated Grips review
Gosh. Both Gold AND Premium in the name… these had better be good!
When I spec’d my new Royal Enfield Interceptor, heated grips were a must have. Apart from anything else I was picking it up the weekend after the Overland Winter Warmer, so it was likely to be chilly! Ian at Cooperb Motorcycles asked me if I’d be interested in trying out some heated grips he’d just come across, so that’s what I had fitted.
There is an integrated button on the left grip; this and a small in-line controller on the wiring harness house the control unit rather than a large separate control unit cluttering the bars. This was plus point number one for me, as these grips are incredibly unobtrusive. Cooperb did mention that the wires weren’t overly long, so they had to connect everything under the tank, but that the connectors supplied are good quality so they had no concerns, and that installation had been a simple process.
Looking good and being easy to install is all very good of course, but how well do the grips function?
The button is in the Goldilocks Zone – not too small so that it’s tricky to operate with a gloved hand, not too large to be obtrusive, but just right. The button flashes a white light when you turn the bike on, so you know they are connected, and will also flash a purple light if your voltage drops lower than 11.5V for longer than 5 seconds (cancelling that if it goes higher than 13 V for more than 5 seconds). The grips have five heat settings, each in 20% increments and each indicated by a different colour (Blue, Green, Yellow, Amber and Red) which is easily visible with a glance.
I have to say that in over a thousand miles of riding from mid-February to mid-March I’ve only kept it on the hottest setting on two rides, and one of those was on the day it was hailing when I set off and snowing as I returned. The Red 100% setting reaches around 50°C after just 5 minutes, 70°C after just 15 minutes and 80°C after half an hour, so it’s mostly only used to get the grips up to temperature quickly and then you’ll want to turn it to one of the lower settings or they get too hot. This is brilliant if like me you often only remember to turn the grips on when your fingers have already started to get cold!
To go down a setting you have to cycle through the settings, increasing it all the way round to the setting you want, but this inability to go straight down one setting is such a minor gripe, it shows how good these grips are in every other respect. When you first turn the grips on, they even remember what setting you had them on the last time you used them, so provided the weather hasn’t changed much, you’re instantly in the comfort zone.
Despite this rapid temperature rise, the grips only consume 2.4A and 28.8W (and have a 4A car type inline fuse). They fit 22mm handlebars, and are available in two lengths, 120mm or 130mm. The external diameter is 32mm do they aren’t too bulky either, and look like OEM fitment. If things warm up, you can turn the grips off with a three second press from any setting.
These grips definitely get the Overland seal of approval, and at £99.99 inc VAT from Cooperb (other vendors are available), even though they aren’t the cheapest on the market (indeed Tecno Globe do some at half the price themselves) we suspect they’ll be making an appearance on more of the Overland bikes in the not-too-distant future! The combination of functionality, performance and unobtrusiveness is a winner.
See the Tecno Globe site.
Words by Saul Jeavons