be riding along in the sun, then head into the shade of a frosty valley- the temperature of each glove drops, so they start heating. Clever.
CONNECT TO YOUR... GLOVES? Our world of Bluetooth connectivity is a wondrous thing … but never did I think I’ d be connecting my phone to my gloves. Yet here we are. It’ s easy enough, download the app, open Bluetooth, attach the batteries and stab at some buttons until they connect. Will it be easy for you …? Not if you’ re like Vege, our publisher, who threatens to throw his computer out of the window on a daily basis. You’ ll know if this is you. Next up you need to calibrate them. Again, easy enough if you’ re not Vege. That done I was ready to head south with toasty fingers.
HOT AND COLD Guessing at an appropriate temperature, I set the app to 21 degrees as I left Reefton, heading for the West Coast. The gloves are pretty toasty in their own right with Primaloft insulation, and it actually took a fair while for them to start heating, as both my hands and gloves were warm as I got on the bike. Somewhere around Greymouth I could start to feel some warmth spreading over the top of my hands and fingers. I’ d kinda forgotten about the heating, but this reminded me about the heated aspect of the gloves, so I ended up spending a fair bit of time fiddling with the app as I went- no, it’ s not recommended. So, while you’ re not meant to be looking at the app while you ride, I was fascinated with the app graphic showing how much my hands were being heated, from a small tickle through to full blast, to keep the temperature at a constant value. It turns out my left hand runs a little colder than my right. While the gloves were dry they worked
perfectly well, I think I managed to eek out 8 hours on one day that was a mix of quite cold and quite warm. Even when it rained they worked well, although I did notice the gloves were on more often- probably the rain and wind cooling the glove- which had a noticeable effect on the battery life. I had to turn the temperature down to its lowest to make it last most of a full day on the bike. On the stint from Franz Josef to Te Anau, I rode through over six hours of heavy rain. I’ ve had few gloves which will stay dry in those conditions. The Yugas put in a valiant performance but they eventually succumbed to the wet. This meant the gloves were fighting a losing battle against the water and sub 5-degree temperature. The batteries ran out after a couple of hours of being constantly on at full blast while trying to reach the minimum set temperature. Hours and hours of cold temperature and pouring rain is probably the worst case scenario for any glove, one which few would triumph over. A second set of batteries would have been handy as they aren’ t particularly quick charging, taking quite a few hours to recharge fully. The Yugas are a good glove. They’ re comfortable, quite warm even without the heating side of things, I like the thermostat-style operation and they can go a full day of riding if the conditions aren’ t particularly challenging. With the exception of the extreme conditions mentioned above, they work well keeping hands toasty and dry.
Model: Ixon IT Yuga Colour: Black / blue Price: $ 579
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