MCN Fleet: Bringing a Little Comfort to the X-Adv

With the July sun blazing and light summer nights still with us it’s time to start to think about winter riding, well, it is if you’re anything like me!!

Being an all new model, there are currently a limited number of aftermarket parts available for the X-Adv. What Honda do have are two specially designed packs, the City Pack at £475 and the more expensive Comfort Pack at £835. Both include heated grips and crash protectors, I opted for the more expensive Comfort Pack as it also includes LED fog lights.

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At £835 the pack appears expensive but it includes fitting, which turned out to be a labour intensive job. The X-Adv is definitely more scooter-like than bike where the fairing is concerned. To wire in the lights and grips the complete fairing needed to be removed. Many of the fixings are hidden, to keep the fairing looking neat and tidy but this makes it an intricate job to dis-assemble. Once ‘nude’ the X-Adv wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Transformers Movie.

Each component had to be assembled before they could be fitted to the bike. Darren, the mechanic at Honda UK, laid out all the parts of the fog lights, heated grips and crash protectors. They filled two work benches and took him an age to build.

I’ve fitted universal heated grips to bikes I’ve previously owned and always thought the controls have been unsightly, this definitely isn’t the case with these official Honda parts.

Once in place, the only way you’d know the heated grips are there is by the tiny button on the left grip. There is also a natty grip shaped symbol on the dash, when the grips are turned on this illuminates and indicates the setting they are on.

Bolted to the newly fitted crash bars, the LED fog lights are operated by an inch-square button that sits just below the digital dash. They give out a bright, clear light and make the bike look ‘Charley and Ewan-esque’.

Even though it was the best parts of twenty five degrees when I rode home I couldn’t resist playing with the grips. They heated up in seconds and a part of me, a very small part of me, started to wish the summer away, just so I could test them properly.