You are out and in the serious boonies bouncing along at midnight doing just fine thinking, ‘ya I got this’ who needs to see down the road, anyhow? Suddenly the trail takes a hard left, and you think to yourself, ‘man I wished I saw that coming’ as you tumble down into a ravine at the bottom of a cliff… Lights, Camera, Action – Big Time Lighting.
Okay not quite, how about this, you live in a state/destination/country that lets you lane split. You are splitting along, safely of course, when the guy two cars up suddenly decides they want the other lane, uh-huh, well they don’t see you so it’s okay, right?
Yes, those are just two unmistakably good reasons to hang some lumens out in front. Yes, there are many more reasons, however, those are the two I used to justify my lights. Well, that and to be one of the cool cats/kittens, you need to bump up that lighting horsepower.
Which lights do I choose? Big Time Lighting
I will say it right up front, LED is the ONLY way to go. There are so many options when choosing a lighting package it can make you dizzy. You probably can find halogen or something, or get some cheap LED projectors and be just fine. Anything is better than nothing, maybe, until they fail out in those boonies I was talking about. Or take a week of Sundays to try and figure out how to get them on your ride and working.
My choice was Baja Designs S2 Pro. I had been looking at the Denali lights and still may add on later, however, the Baja had a bit more power, (just under 2500 lumens per light) and are small rectangular units that are a nice compliment to the softer rounder overall look on Bean.
As you can see the lights are small but mighty. The lights themselves are very well made, defiantly on par with the Denali lighting. I didn’t have any issues installing them, the wire harness was well made, had plenty of length, and waterproof connectors. There is no on/off switch provided, and I think that is good because you can find them online, on Amazon, or eBay without too much trouble. The switch I bought came from Amazon and only cost $14. USD. The switch looks good and fits nicely on my handlebars within convenient reach of my thumb.
Wires and hookup
I have a bit of a bug about wiring things in, it must look stock or close, it must be neat, and it must be effectively laid out. So the easiest part of this was mounting the lights on the crash bars. The bars where I attached the lights are 7/8 inch and since the light kit did not have any mounts I used insulated electrical conduit clamps. The reason is that because they are insulated they have a plastic/rubber liner on the inside of the metal clamping band. This makes the clamp not slip and not scratch the finish on the crasher. That was easy but after that, it was a bit more tricky.
2 Miles of wiring harness
Since I left my wire stretchers at the office it is a good thing that these lights come with a copious amount of wire harness to reach back to a power source. That is both a good and bad thing. To do this well means removing the tank and plotting a course through the underpinnings of the bike.
I ran the harness up through the frame, noting that it is a good idea to keep the wire away from the hottest parts of the engine. Then back and across the central bulk of the engine and then back out under the tank mount. You may want to place any of the disconnects where you can clip/un-clip them should you need to later on.
On the Bean, I choose to have the lighting set up so that power was always on, this way if I needed to run the lights without the motor running or ignition on I can. Of course, the downside is that the lights will be running off the battery, and if I leave the lights on without the motor running it will drain the battery. So far this has worked for me as it has come in handy to be able to run the lights without the motor/ignition on for short periods. I may go into the specifics of how I wired the lights with a short video later.
~ Epilogue:
The Pros and Cons
- LED lights are the only way to go. I will firmly stick to that statement because they are tough, bright, and efficient.
- Baja Design lights are well thought out, well built, and bright with options on lensing for different beam spread.
- Not having a switch was not a show stopper, however, it would be nice to have some dimming options
- Having a CANbus option might be nice, running on the BMW systems could be a plus if it was possible
- Clearwater, Denali, and Baja Designs are definatly front runners in the LED lighting for motorcycles, (all very pricey)