Motorcycles BS Thread 2.0

Ridiculously close call this morning on the way to work. Just left the house to head to work, turned on to the main road and gone a couple hundred yards at most when I saw/sensed movement on my left. 6 point buck jumped right out in front of and crossed the road. Thank God for my extra lighting that I'd noticed something and rolled off the throttle grabbing a handful of brake. I don't think there were 2 feet of space between our paths. Heart rate still elevated, haven't checked underwear.

This is very near the location I hit a deer on my Buell 20 years ago.

 

Need one of these.

 

Times like this morning are where I can easily justify the expensive auxiliary lighting set up on my bike. I can honestly say if all I'd had was my regular stock headlight I seriously don't believe I would have had as much warning as what I did.

Back in June when a friend and I did an Iron Butt ride to MI and back I lead most of the overnight hours and after we got home he told his wife he was going to be ordering lights. He couldn't get over how much brighter it was and how much further down the road we could see because of them. Almost thinking I should send Clearwater a thank you card after this morning.

 

Lane splitting gone wrong

 

Play stupid games...

 

I have never been a huge lighting guy, but after seeing the difference b/t the LED in my Rally and the old headlight from the DRZ.......I'm a believer

 

Getting out for a ride in a little while (been weeks) for an eye appointment. After that, the ride takes me where it takes me. Do i have other things that need to be done…. Yes! Don’t care if they get done. Hells no!

 

I've dived into LED lighting on motorcycles, mainly because the stock KTM light was pathetic. It look a couple tries to come up with something that worked well and was durable/waterproof for my use.

This was ver 1.0, extremely bright and adjustable from spot to wide angle in seconds. I used the heads from 2 small high powered flashlights and installed my own driver instead of the ones out of the flashlight. It worked great, unfortunately it also leaked water around the o-rings that seal the sliding mechanism that focuses the beam. That wouldn't cut it.
Ver 1.0


I found some

$30 LED Pods, AKD Part 3" CREE LED Driving Lights 40W Spot Off Road Small Lights Pods Ditch Lights LED Fog Lights Backup Lights 2 Packs for Truck Motorcycle UTV ATV SUV Jeep Toyota

pods that use 10W Cree XML LEDs, same LED BD uses in their similar pods. In fact they're close enough that the wide angle and colored lenses from the BD pods fit these lights with a slight filing of the corners of the lense, they're plastic so that part is pretty simple and took about a min per lense with a dremel. Since this was the primary light I installed on wide angle lense and left one a spot. Low beam is wide angle and is easily adjusted so it doesn't blind the oncoming traffic. I measured the wattage and it's 17W per pod, that's 3W less then the advertised amount but IMO that's good, they aren't being driven at 100% which can be hard on the light and driver electronics. On high it's both lights and it'll blind a driver but again the light can be adjusted to be low enough to not blind oncoming drivers especially if they're mounted low.



You can see how they work at night in this video. For the price they can't be beat.

O liked them enough I built another for my XC.

 

ive always liked bright lights lol cant stand dull ones. but that comes from working 2nd shift for years

 

I drove a TJ for 9yrs with sealed beamed headlights. My first car was a 65 Mustang.........so I've never had good lighting ......and I worked nightshift for 15yrs

 

I only added them initially when I got into long distance rallying. Depending on the event and where the bonus locations take you it's easy to end up riding in BumF**k middle of nowhere at 2 or 3 am so you'd better be able to see. Most of the "top dogs" in that field are running major lighting so I looked at what they were using and as the budget allowed went that direction. Painful but ultimately worth it.

 

Sounds like the perfect case of buy once, cry once.

 

Might have cried a little more than once, probably about 2 paychecks is closer to it.

 

Tears dry

 

man to hell with that haha

 

Case of never missing what you didn't have

 

haha i guess!

 

My little Rally is the first vehicle I've had with LED's. It's definitely a lot better than what I was use to

 

I've never understood why deer hunting was so hard, they literally try to kill themselves regularly.

Glad it was a near miss!

 

Thats a vague question, are you talking about if you're putting the bike away for the winter or something? For storing the bikes: if left empty old steel tanks usually rust above the gas line. If left with gas in them, the gas will almost always gel and varnish over time leaving a PITA mess to clean out of every tiny orifice in the carb and jets. Using non-ethanol fuel really helps the gumming issues. For my bikes for the winter I fill them to the tippy top, if I'm not riding them still actively, to try and keep as much air and condensation out as I can to prevent rusting. I'd really like to not have to do a kream or por-15 coat on the inside of the tank if I can avoid it.