Chemical hand warmer hack

[us56456712]

I get cold hands riding, even for only an hour at 35 F. I use bar mitts, electric gloves and a chemical hand warmer inside the bar mitts. This can get expensive if you ride every day or snowshoe or ski so to keep costs down I order two cases of warmers at the beginning of the cold. After your ride if you put the chemical hand warmers inside a small zip lock bag, like what bike parts come in, and seal it and put it into another small zip lock bag the chemical reaction goes out. It will activate when exposed to the air again. I get two and often 3 rides from one pair this way. I don't know if this is a common practice but I came up with it after a friend told me about doing it after skiing.

 

[TroutFishingInAmerica]

Reusable hand warmers.

 

[us56456712]

Reusable hand warmers. View attachment 87112

what are these?

 

[TroutFishingInAmerica]

They are awesome. It's hard to explain but I'll give it a try.
The little metal disk in the warmer is concave, you pop it, like what people call oil canning. That sets off a reaction in the packet that turns the liquid (totally safe liquid, you could eat it) into a solid and puts out heat. Once it's hard and spent, you boil it, or like me put it in the microwave oven watching closely, turn it back into a liquid and it's ready to go again. Not as much heat as a chemical one like you use, but I just carry more, heck man, they are reusable. Google reusable hand warmers. I have had some for years.

 

[us56456712]

what are these?

How do they work? Do you heat them in the microwave? I have never seen or heard of these. I have some felt packets with rice in them that you put in the microwave and they work good for about a half hour.

 

[TroutFishingInAmerica]

You heat them to return them to a liquid so they can be used later. Really, do a Google search, watch a video, I'm not doing a good job of explaining how they work.

 

[TroutFishingInAmerica]

This shows them activated. He doesn't show boiling or reactivating them, it's not recommended to microwave them, don't do as I do. Hope this helps.

 

[us56456712]

Thanks, I looked them up. Very interesting concept. They won't be hot enough for me. Today it was 23F with a light north wind. It took me two rides to get ten miles using bar mitts, electric gloves and chemical warmers. I had to quit after 3 laps (6.12 miles) to warm my hands inside and then went again to get 4. 08 more. Sometimes I can get the whole ten miles at one time but it has to be around 32F. When it is really cold I use several hand warmers in the bar mitts and on the back of my wrist inside the electric gloves. Bitter cold like -20F I can only do 4 miles with goggles, face mask electric sox and gloves and lots of layers. You start out freezing and then get hot and sweaty, but your hands and feet get so cold you have to quit. Younger riders can ride in this stuff with much less protection but I can't. I may get these reusable warmers for pocket warmers when I go to night events like the ski jumps and the Finnish Snow God fireworks celebration on Teal Lake, where there are bon fires for extra warmth. They would also work as pocket warmers for the day time out house races where you can step into a bar when you get too cold. Two people push an outhouse on a frozen course, fastest time wins. Men, woman, mixed and age categories. My two buddies in their 70s got 3rd place in the old timer category with their "Atomic Pile" outhouse with Korean decorations on it. It takes a lot for two people to push evenly over the whole course, especially if one gets more exhausted at the end. The outhouse can tip over on the rutted course, the resulting Atomic Pile spill will cause a momentary disruption of the activities while the Haz Mat team does their thing. Ha Ha. In certain instances these would save money if used instead of the chemical warmers. Thanks, I never new about these.

 

[us56456712]

It was 18F today and I had electric gloves on high and one chemical hand warmer in each bar mitt. It took 3 rides to get 10 miles and my hands were in misery with each ride. Last year I bought most of the stuff to make my own electric hand warmers. My wife came up with the idea of heat tape for my grips and brake levers. I'm going to try an electric DC heat tape hack for my grips. Desperate times, desperate measures. If I can't work out the DC heat tape wrap, then I will try 3 chemical warmers in each bar mitt. I think the problem is the 18F grips that I have to hold onto. If those could be warmer then I think I could ride longer.

 

[jamesdart]

Ever try the windshields in front of your hands made from half a bottle?
I see the delivery guys with them all over the city

 

[clamdigger]

If holding onto 18F grips is a problem, it sounds like the grips & handlebars are acting like a heatsink. What I do for my arthritic hands is use regular tubular shaped rubber grips. I slide a piece of tubular foam pipe insulation ( not the kind that is pre-cut length wise ) over them.

 

[Dr. Tankenstein]

If you could find a small rechargeable 12v power source, there are plenty of grip warmers for motorcycles. I don’t know how long they would run from a stored charge, but it doesn’t sound like you’re looking for more than an hour or two or use


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[jamesdart]

One of the modern jump starters would probably work for that. They are small and light. But kind inexpensively only using for hand warmers.

 

[us56456712]

If you could find a small rechargeable 12v power source, there are plenty of grip warmers for motorcycles. I don’t know how long they would run from a stored charge, but it doesn’t sound like you’re looking for more than an hour or two or use


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I looked into these. The cheap ones are apparently junk so the more expensive ones would be the way to go. My finger on the brake lever also gets cold so that would have to be heated as well. I'm hacking together some homemade heat tape so I can wrap the grips and brake levers. There isn't a lot of room in the bar mitts so if this works it might not fit. The ATV motorcycle grips will be next if this doesn't work. It was 20F yesterday and I managed 16 miles on my snow bike, 10 miles with a warm up and 6 miles to finish. The 10 miles was miserable. It's 12 F now so I may not ride today but I'm almost at 1500 miles and want to get this before December 12. May not be in the cards. We are living in Michigan's UP but between L. Michigan and L. Superior, about 15 miles closer to L. Superior than Michigan. We are high enough for it to get colder than low spots up here. This means we are not in the L. Michigan Banana belt so it gets cold away for the Lakes but we are close enough to Superior to get abundant snow. Cold and moderately snowy. I still love it but I gotta figure out how to keep my fingers warm. I also ride in group rides at night in Ishpeming, which is over 1000 feet higher than L. Superior and those are fun but the ends are miserable. I have ridden there at night in -20F. The cold doesn't keep the riders away and we get large groups even in these temps. My 72 year old riding buddy uses electric mitts with pockets cut in them so he can stuff chemical hand warmers around his hands. His thumbs still get cold.

 

[us56456712]

One of the modern jump starters would probably work for that. They are small and light. But kind inexpensively only using for hand warmers.

I wonder how long you would get out of one of these? They are amazing. The local snow plower uses one of these as the hydraulic system uses a lot of juice and if he stalls out he can't start with out a boost from one of these little cell phone charger batteries hooked out to a plug in starter. Good idea that might work. If I buy one and it doesn't last then I will keep it in my truck for emergency boosts. Lots of good ideas here as always.