Adventure Bike Rider Forum

I used to do a lot of night riding on my R1150GS, Chelmsford to London every working day on mainly unlit 'A' roads.

Quite honestly, the standard lights on my bike where dangerous.. completely inadequate for the job.. maybe other road users could see me, but I had trouble seeing well ahead.

A change to HID lights transformed my night time riding, luckily the 1150 has the perfect light setup for such a conversion, clear and sharp beam pattern, and glass lens' that don't melt.

I've had them fitted for about 10 years, MOT'd no problem, never been 'flashed' by other road users, so, for me they work very well..

Edit to add, I agree the wankers with their badly adjusted multi-spotlamps need horse whipping.

Sleepy wrote:I used to do a lot of night riding on my R1150GS, Chelmsford to London every working day on mainly unlit 'A' roads.

Quite honestly, the standard lights on my bike where dangerous.. completely inadequate for the job.. maybe other road users could see me, but I had trouble seeing well ahead.

A change to HID lights transformed my night time riding, luckily the 1150 has the perfect light setup for such a conversion, clear and sharp beam pattern, and glass lens' that don't melt.

I've had them fitted for about 10 years, MOT'd no problem, never been 'flashed' by other road users, so, for me they work very well..

Edit to add, I agree the wankers with their badly adjusted multi-spotlamps need horse whipping.

Sensible option

you have all got it wrong,what you need is a hiviz polite vest. :laugh: :laugh:

anthony29040 wrote:you have all got it wrong,what you need is a hiviz polite vest. :laugh: :laugh:

Totally agree (thumbs)




























Only joking

I have auxiliary lights on all the time, mine are Givi Trekker fog lights, giving a flat pattern of light that doesn't dazzle. A good triangle of light, be seen be safe.
Cars have 2 lights bikes 1. The 1 light of a bike can be lost if there are more lights behind it. A triangle of lights makes you more visible.

Incidentally I rode over Lythe Fell from Slaidburn today, foggy from home to Slaidburn, clear from Slaidburn to the top, thick fog on the other side. The number of drivers with no lights on at all in fog was worrying. I dropped over Lythe Fell into thick fog and a car appeared out of nowhere with no lights on at all (yes a woman) . Invisible until about 10 foot from me.

Diesel Pete wrote:My pet hate is car drivers who see a bit of fog in the far distance and think "ooh I best put all my fog lights and leave them on for the next six weeks" :whistle:

Me too. When you're saying "that's not fog, it's a bit of mist".

My measure is, from 300-500 yds away, can I clearly see a vehicle that has it's normal lights on. If the answer is yes, nobody needs to have fog lights on.

Seems to be a fad going on these days of people makeing threats of violence on other people through social media. Every one a hard man and not the kind of people you,d want to mess with iam sure. Probally nothing to do with wanting to impress their online devotee,s. :whistle:

People who ride around with their bikes festooned with spot-lights etc. who think they'll be seen, are seriously deluding themselves.

If police riders with 'blues and two's' in operation can have near misses, what chance with your fashionable RTW spot/auxiliary things..?

Doubt that you can see better with these additional hid spot lights. I passed around 10 adventure motorcycles yesterday and nodded to all and only ONE nodded back. So the ducking lights appear not to see a fellow rider making a general hello nod. This is opposed to around 50 non adventure riders nodding back except for about 2. One scooter lad, no lights or mirror type on a pretty quick lambretta, kindly nodded.

This threads reminded me I need to put my little LED button aux lights on the CBX, cheers guys :laugh: