meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Adventure Rider Radio

It's all About How it Feels - Mike Coan

Adventure Rider Radio

Canoe West Media

Automotive, Adventure, Traveller, Motorbike, Trip, Discover, Moto, World, Documentary, Outdoors, Overlander, Adv, Bike, Travel, Touring, Biker, Advrider, Dualsport, Traveler, Explore, Rider, Overland, Ride, Motorcyclist, Motorcycle, Places & Travel, Society & Culture, Leisure, Leisure:automotive

4.9915 Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2022

⏱️ 71 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mike Coan is a motorcycle traveller and one of the founders of Warm & Safe Heated Gear in Milwaukie, Oregon. He and his wife, Susan, have been designing and manufacturing heated clothing for almost three decades. We invited Mike on the show to talk about his evolutionary story of how they got in to making heated gear for riders, and being the passionate rider that he is the conversation takes a lot of twists and turns as we wind around topics like motorcycle travel, the way things have changed and a lot of what it feels like to ride and why he rides.

If you enjoyed this Adventure Rider Radio motorcycle podcast episode please consider supporting the show by going to adventureriderradio.com/support and also check out our sponsors.

Follow Adventure Rider Radio:
Facebook: AdventureRiderRadio
Instagram: @adventureriderradio
Twitter: @ADVRiderRadio

For more on this episode see the show notes at Adventure Rider Radio.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

About 30 years ago, Mike Cohn was making his way through the mountains between Germany and France to meet up with a friend.

0:07.0

It was cold out, so cold that by the time he stopped for a break, his body was literally shaking, mild hypothermia.

0:14.0

And while trying to warm up, Mike decided that he was going to invest in some kind of heated gear.

0:18.0

But later on when he found the heated gear, he didn't like it at all.

0:22.0

It was the early days in the heated garment business for

0:24.3

motorcycling and according to Mike the gear was plagued with issues everything from

0:28.4

not keeping the rider warm enough to wiring shorting out even the connectors

0:32.0

where you plug into your motorcycle burning the riders because

0:34.8

it was getting too hot.

0:36.4

And the controller, the unit that controls how hot the jacket actually gets, well in Mike's

0:41.1

mind that was a real problem.

0:43.0

Later he was told that it was a repurposed controller from a heated blanket.

0:47.0

Still, he wanted heated gear for himself.

0:50.0

So he thought, well, why not design my own? So he set out with a friend to design his own

0:54.8

controller while his partner Susan a clothing designer from Nike designed the heated

0:59.3

clothing to suit their riding style now the original plan was to make some good gear, good

1:03.8

heated gear for themselves and a few friends, but by the time they were done that

1:07.8

controller that Mike and his friend made was so much better than anything else

1:11.4

on the market that one of the leading heating clothing

1:13.9

began selling Mike's controller connected to their heated clothing. What started out as a project

1:20.0

for a small group of riders became a business.

1:23.0

And eventually, Mike and Susan began selling their controller

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Canoe West Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Canoe West Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.