The importance of upgrading your motorcycle lighting

The importance of upgrading your motorcycle lighting

The importance of upgrading your motorcycle lighting

There are three ways to improve your lighting: first, make sure your stock setup is the best it can be; second, upgrade your headlight with aftermarket options; and third, the addition of auxiliary lighting.

Get the best out of your stock, OEM headlight

Start with the basics. Replace any burnt out light bulbs. Clean your headlight lenses, check your aim, and make sure all connections, battery, and charging system components are all in good condition. I remember thinking that the headlight on my Triumph Scrambler 900 was unusually dim one night on a cross-country trip, only to find it completely caked in guts at the next gas stop. One minute with the washer squeegee and my low light problem was solved.

Some older motorcycles have sealed-beam headlight bulbs, which are round or rectangular glass bulbs with the filament sealed inside. Sealed beam lights can become dimmer over time due to a variety of reasons. Sometimes a fresh sealed beam bulb is a big improvement over a tired one. Luckily, most auto parts stores offer inexpensive replacements. Additionally, there are plenty of drop-in aftermarket upgrades that feature modern bulb technology like LED lighting and even lean angle sensitivity, which we'll get to in a second.

Motorcycles not old enough to use sealed headlights likely have incandescent or halogen lights. For these bikes, a bulb upgrade can do wonders to improve headlight output. There are some high-quality options now available with design features to help you see the road ahead, like quartz glass for clarity and bright white color temperature for increased visibility with the same wattage as your stock bulb. We do not recommend installing bulbs with a higher wattage than your motorcycle was originally designed to handle. This can result in melted headlight housings, fried wiring, or a fire.

Best Motorcycle Headlight Upgrade Options

In addition to making the most of your stock headlights, there are many other options available if you're willing to do a little extra work. For bikes with halogen bulbs like a typical H4, drop-in LED or HID upgrades are a worthy consideration. For older machines with sealed beam bulbs, replacement units are available that are the same size and shape as the originals, but feature new technology found in modern motorcycles and cars and put out much more light while using much less energy and lasting much longer longer than old bulbs. Many of them also offer built-in lean angle-sensitive lighting, to further shine light into corners as you lean the bike. Pretty shiny!

High-intensity discharge (HID) bulbs are a type of gas-discharge electric lamp that produces light using an electric arc between electrodes housed inside a translucent or transparent arc tube. The xenon gas in these bulbs is what creates the light, which is why they are sometimes called xenon bulbs. HIDs gained popularity in the 90s on many high-end cars. They are identifiable by their dramatic warming period, in which they increase in brightness and their color temperature changes from a blue color to a bright white color. They can produce about three times the amount of light as a halogen bulb using the same or less wattage. I personally remember switching from halogen lights to HID headlights for mountain biking at night and it was truly a game changer. If you've been riding with a pack of bikers with HIDs,

Light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs are quickly becoming the gold standard in modern motorcycles and automobiles. Easily identifiable by their instant on/off and bluish-white color temperature, LEDs last almost forever and use less electricity than any other type of bulb. Because LEDs come in many shapes and sizes, manufacturers are able to create modular units, containing many LEDs in one housing, which is why they tend to be widely used in sealed beam replacements and auxiliary lights. I switched to an LED headlamp from an HID for mountain biking a few years ago and have found that the performance is unmatched.

The disadvantages of HID and LED bulbs are typically the cost and the need to hide additional components. They generally have larger bases, additional wires, ballasts or cooling fans that need to be securely placed somewhere on the motorcycle if there isn't enough room inside the headlight housing. One final thing to consider when switching to HID or LED bulbs is that the reflectors in the headlight housing were designed around halogen bulbs, so the light pattern generated by the new type of bulb may not be optimal. I honestly don't like the hard-edged light that some LED headlights have compared to the softer-edged halogen offerings.

Addition of auxiliary lights

If your motorcycle has the space to mount them and the additional power needed to run them, adding auxiliary lights in addition to the factory headlights is another option to help you see while riding at night. My friend, Peter, runs a set of Denali D4 auxiliary lights on his GS.

“What's it like to ride with those at night?” I asked.

“In the daytime,” he replied. It was the perfect one-word sales pitch for a profitable investment. I now personally run a set on my Tiger 800XC and find them to be one of the best upgrades I've made to the bike.

If you've ever seen FIA World Rally Championship race cars during the night stages, you can see that a lot of auxiliary lighting is needed to prevent them from overtaking the headlights. For motorcyclists, especially those of us with bikes that don't have the best stock lighting, there are other benefits, even if you go much slower than race pace.

For on-road use, an extra pair of lights increases your ability to see the road ahead and also makes drivers more likely to take notice. Auxiliary lighting can give you a wider spread, so it could increase your chances of spotting that deer that's just off the trail in the dark of night. If you don't want to alter the style of your bike much, you can attach a small pair of auxiliary lights to the bottom of the frame or fork legs, where they will go virtually unnoticed during the day or when the bike is parked.

For adventure travel, the benefits of auxiliary lighting are hard to beat. Being able to clearly see rough terrain and the texture of the ground with high powered lighting is a huge plus. Keep in mind that the lower the lights mounted on your motorcycle, the larger the shadows cast by obstacles. I find that mounting aux lights high, particularly on ADV bikes, increases my ability to clearly identify rough terrain in the dark.

There are many options available to improve your motorcycle lighting. Just be sure to weigh the pros and cons of each and consider which choices might be best for your machine and typical riding conditions. As always, feel free to contact our customer service team or leave questions or comments on this article if you need help choosing lighting for your motorcycle.

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