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I'm asking more for my motorcycle, but I do have a MTB as well. Wondering if I can engineer a 'heat suit' - electric gloves, insoles and vest to make winter riding possible. If so, does anyone have practical experience?
I already can ride just about to now (End of November) with chaps, long johns, welding gloves (leather gauntlets) with 'Swedish Military wool gloves' underneath. But I'm about done without more help. This would be dry weather only.
Yes you can totally ride with electrically heated clothing. I had some bar warmers on a recumbent which helped enormously on mid-winter rides - the hands are well above one's heart on a bent which decrease blood flow so external heat was wonderful.
BUT.... downsides for heating large areas of your body are that you'll get hot and your body will sweat. This will effectively cool exposed areas, making you feel colder and damper.
Instead of adding heat, work out what part of your body gets coldest, and wind-proof that area. For me that was
Often, simply keeping the extremities warm will help and you don't need to warm the core - after all you're exercising which generates heat.
External Moisture comes in from rain and fog and road spray. It may be something to ignore and enjoy a hot-shower at the other end, or if the rain is bad you may choose a waterproof layer on the outside. Have spare clothes at your destination.
Problem with waterproof is they tend to resist sweat leaving as well, so I've had rainy rides where I am a parboiled chicken inside my raincoat/overtrousers. Its not pleasant and sometimes I prefer to get wet.
E-bike may be a good target for such devices as the cyclist produces less heat, the speed (so wind) is often higher and there is a good power source. I use heated gloves that absolutely make sense at zero temperatures. One of the benefits may be to regulate the heating easier, faster and more precisely than it is possible by just putting something on or off.
While it is possible to generate enough heat to stay warm, I assume this may be difficult to balance. Slippery road or downhill may limit how much energy can be put and there is somewhat dependency on time (initially you are still warm as from the house, then gets cold, then gets warm as the heat builds up).
I don't think that's a good idea and here's why.
If your fingers or feet get cold, that's caused by your body having too little insulation. Your body is removing heat from non-essential parts to keep you alive. The solution is to insulate your entire body with enough clothes.
Now, when riding a motorcycle your body produces probably around 100 watts of waste heat (idle heat). When riding a bicycle, you additionally are producing 100 watts of mechanical power which creates along with it at 25% efficiency 300 watts of waste heat, so you have 400 watts of heat total.
The problem is, you probably need at least 2 hours of runtime to have acceptable range, which means for motorcycling to match the heat power output of your body you need 200 watt-hours and for bicycling 800 watt-hours. This matching of human power output is for cases where your clothing has half the amount of needed insulation.
Do you know how much 200 watt-hours weigh? Even with lithium ion, that's a lot. My ebike battery (500 Wh) weighs 2.9 kg, so you need at least 1.2 kg for the battery. And that's when the battery is new. Ideally batteries should be usable when they have 70% of capacity left, so using that measurement, you would need 1.7 kg for the battery.
For bicycling, that would be 4 times more ridiculous (6.6 kg for the battery).
My opinion is that the best approach is to insulate your entire body well. And just in case you have too little insulation in your body, causing heat to be drawn out from fingers and feet, you should have lots of insulation on those fingers and feet that would not be necessary normally but could be useful if for example due to you becoming tired your heat output decreases.
I think that in most cases, it would weigh less to have more insulation rather than to carry a heavy battery and electric resistance heaters. It would cost far less too.
However, if you tap into the electric power output of a motorcycle, then it might make sense. I have a heated steering wheel in my car, and that's useful because it doesn't need a big battery. It just uses the alternator output.
