Proper motorcycle lights are important, we had to improve the DR’s lights as they are more in the class of candlelight than modern daylights. Buying lights for motorcycles can be a good confusing nightmare. Ask on social media which lights or advice is like sinking in a sea of a quagmire as most would know.
Spending upwards of 1000$ like some BMW boys do to look like a Christmas tree waffling down the road is not the idea. Being visible is essential, but there’s a line where even that amount of light won’t save your skin.
Depending on your needs, it is important to make sure where to stop just by adding lights. Our idea is to have better visibility at night or in foggy conditions. And of course to make sure other road users can see us. As a general rule, we do not ride at night. Does not matter what country. Nevertheless, when shit happens and bad conditions will happen, riding at night is inevitable.
For off-road use, the positioning of lights is incredibly important. Crashes, spills, and drops will break those mega-priced Dollar lights eventually. I remember when BMW launched the 1200GSA in 2007 with those two lights bolted to the crash bars on the sides of the bike, it will end in disaster for riders. Many of my friends and people we knew had exactly that happening to them.
● Fitting lights on the crash bars on the side of a motorcycle eventually will break off in a fall. They are just not made to take impact and the reason why we fitted the LED bar below the headlight.
● Fitting lights just below or close to the indicators is a no-no, oncoming motorists can’t see the indicator blinking above the intense light of a spotlight.
The choices from brands for lights that can take the abuse offroad, their life spa,n and cost do not seem to be that many.
The first limitation for aftermarket lights is the motorcycle electrical system is often the deciding factor on how many megawatts of football stadium lights you want to fit. For a simple upgrade that shouldn’t cause issues, you can start by improving your built-in headlight output.
Replacement halogen or LED headlight bulb, install and you’re done. If you want more light the next option is to add a set of auxiliary driving lights. The more lights you add the more you draw amperage so using LEDs is a great idea because they draw less than halogens.
For a start, I tried to stay clear of external lights, except if they can be fitted out of harm’s way. For mostdual-sportt motorcycles a light bar can be fitted above the front mudguard. That I did in Bolivia. I made my bracket and bought the best, shittiest Chinese light bar available. The idea worked, except the lights did not last more than two weeks.
We fitted lightbars between the front mudguard and below the headlight. Excellent placement and secure safe place for the lights. Except for the quality we could buy in Bolivia was horrendous
Then a fresh new hell awaits to find a light bar that is good quality at a reasonable price. Scoured social mediaand only received advice from people who bought stuff from Amazon and Alibaba and professed how good they are and pay cheap for them. Well, that is complete bollocks, cheap and quality never goes together, okay, expensive is also not a yardstick of the quality of a good buy.
Be that as it may, there was just no qualified information or products that are reasonably priced and with any verifiable quality credentials. It is a bloody minefield of bullshit and there, are a few excellent companies having to fight off all the rest of the nonsense.
That is how I ended up at Cyclops. I took the time to email a few high-end brands to get their view and options offered on what I needed. All of them except Cyclops answered my questions sufficiently enough to make an informed decision, and on what will suit our needs. Cyclops dealt more with the serious offroader than the tarmac slapper with the ridiculous light setup.
We started with the TSIALEE 10.0 H4 LED headlight bulb which made a massive difference. And as Darryl explained the reflector used for the DRcano make the most of the Supernova light beam of the LED bulb. If need be we could now add additional external lights but for our use, this was enough. The high beam is plenty enough when used in traffic to getmotorists’s attention.
Eventually, money permitted we would love to fit something like the TSIALEE Rally light unit. Apart from it looking bloody nice, the light would turn darkness intothe sunshine.
To offer a better perspective on the article I asked Darryl the owner of Tsialee a few questions to offer us all some 1st hand information not just on Tsialee but also about lights.
From what I could gather, LEDs are the business for use on motorcycles (less heat, use less power, more resistance to vibration, etc.) but there are LEDs and then there’s utter rubbish parading LEDs. Cheap LEDs can have as low as a 5-degree wide light spread plus they can be very dim.
The really good LEDs currently have a 120-degree light spread and put out 4,000 milli-candela per LED — but you’ll empty your kid’s university fees for them. This is where sticking to known brands and credited companies pay’s off. Those guys professing on forums and social media how well their Alibaba/ Aliexpress rip-off copied cheap alternatives work is a recipe for wasting money and disappointment.
Make no mistake, not all Chinese brands/ units are nasty and Darryl did confirm that. The problem is there is so much nastiness around the really good brands/units that are drowned out by it.
Opinions vary it seems, it appears that a lot of it depends on the size, shape,e, and quality of your motorcycle’s headlight reflector and also the bike’s wiring. This is where Shalee helped out, they have experience with this and thus were able to offer proper information which is exactly how it turned out when I fitted the LED headlights H4 bulbs.
