Becky,
For what it's worth... I've been using Gerbing gloves, socks, pants liner, and jacket liner for several years. Generally the socks and gloves are all I use until around 20, as my Triumph retro paddock with supplied liner work surprisingly well. That said, the gear (minus jacket liner) did suck out enought power to kill my bike last week. Traffic was going so slow that I was afraid of burning up the clutch, and the bike died and wouldn't restart. After a few hours on the charger, things are ok. On a 17 mile commute, I'll crank up the heat on the highway, but when I get into DC traffic will turn things off so as not to kill the batt (should have known better that one day).
Unless you have extremely well insulated boots (boots that good tend to degrade shifting) get the socks and gloves. You'll be amazed. There are a few manufacturers (Gerbing, Widder, Aerostitch, and a couple other lesser known) and it's not going to be cheap. They all connect to the battery or accessory socket with some kind of switch (cheap) or rheostat ($$$). Gerbing gets good reviews from everyone (I recommend them) and they have a lifetime warranty on the electrics (not the surface material). The gloves are the warmest gloves I've ever seen before turning them on, and they're waterproof (for a couple of hours).
Do your research, shop around (Ebay is good), and maybe find someone close by with gloves you can check out. They really do make cold weather riding more than just tolerable.
And whatever brand you get, get it all the same because it's a royal pain trying to get different brands to work together.
