Make sure your battery is fully charged before you fire up the bike...and try to get an amperagerating for your hand warmers. I would suggest turning the warmers on only while you are riding.(not at idle or during warm up)The charging system does not put out much at low rpm.

 

Aha! You've actually touched on one of my worries - that the Oxford heated grips might be pulling too much current!

My friend has a KTM 990 adventure, and he's paranoid as hell that the oxford grips on his bike will stop his battery charging properly. So much so that he's made me paranoid too!

As an open question to anyone who has experience using heated grips - is the current draw from these a problem? I live in Scotland, and use the bike every day in a 40mile commute. It's so cold here that heated grips are pretty much a necessity - riding in frost conditions freezes your hands pretty quickly. I think with wind chill, the temp is somewhere near -30 degrees (according to the chart on my neck warmer) when riding at 50mph. Of course, I never, ever ride faster than this ;-)

THe Oxford grips I have are the "Hot Grips" with the adjustable (5 heat settings) controller. It says that they only draw 2A on the Oxford website, but is this accurate?

I set my battery charging using an Oxford Oximizer and I don't think it'll ever fully charge the battery - the rating for the charger falls a little below the stated charging amps on the battery. The Oximizer has such a poor display though it's almost totally impossible to tell the condition of the battery or charge status. I left it on charge for about 11 hours and the bike fired up beautifully - I don't have the new R/R yet, but it let me ride the bike to a friends garage where the bike will stay till I get it.

So, in summary, I need to use the grips, is there a risk they'll kill my battery? And if so, is there anything I can do to mitigate against this? Despite my initial reservations (I've always rode enduro/motocross bikes), I've come to love the CBR already, the riding position, the performance and the styling (the F2 stands out as one of the prettiest bikes on the road in my opinion). I really don't want to put the bike away for the winter, and my hands/fingers will falll off without the grips.

 

Cool, I'll keep my eye out for a cheapish gixxer regulator just in case the new R/R I've bought turns out to be no good.

Thanks for all the help - Being a newbie to the world of multi cylinder road only bikes, it's been invaluable.

With advice and ebay links it's a great resource. I'm loving looking at all the pics of bikes too. :-)