Riding at night

[Gorillastrom]

Hello everyone,
Been a while since I posted. Hope all is good with you. I’ve started to ride a lot more to work from cambs to central London and I think I need some kind of auxiliary / spot lights as the last 12 miles or so are on unlit roads and the amount of road kill decorating the verges makes me pretty nervous that I need to do something to at least try to spot animals as early as possible. What type/brand of lights have people fitted to their bikes? Mine is a 2009 DL650 with engine crash bars. So I do have the space to fit a couple of lights in place. Thanks in advance for your help!

[Rixington43]

I run these, as do a few others here I believe;
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295892754864

I've had the set I'm running now for a few years and they've been fine until I had a small bike drop in my garage and I think I shot the seal on one as it has now suffered water ingress, I've just bought a second set as they've been good.
I would highly recommend getting yourself a BigPie aux fuse box to power them off the ignition so they can't be left on;
https://www.v-strom.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=36024.msg443266#msg443266

You can direct message Jamie (BigPie) through the forum.

[Upt North]

Gorilla, I'm not in your position so aux lighting isn't on the agenda.
If I was I would consider what I want to light up. Is it the road a mile ahead or the sides for deer, badgers, pheasants etc. So check out the beam patterns of different lights, such as flood, spot and fog etc.
Good luck.
Upt.

[Rixington43]

As an aside, have you upgraded the headlight bulbs already?
I run osram Nightbreaker Laser bulbs which are considerably brighter and whiter than standard. I've not had one blow in 12k/5yrs so they seem to survive the bike application pretty well, these will probably do more for your vision than aux lights.
Being as yours is a proper classic Strom, they're easy to replace too ;)
The aux lights are good for lighting the verges though and I strongly believe they make you more noticeable to other road users as well.

[Brooksy75]

I've just bought these, not fitted yet but tested on a battery and they're bright enough for me, only took 10 days to arrive and they are knocking 15% off using code MT15.
https://www.led-colight.com/products/2inch-mt-series-mini-motorcycle-lights-with-wire-harness-for-1inch-tube

Here's a review video on YouTube

[deecat]

I will second the choice from  Rixington 43  I have also been using these for years. On one occasion in the middle of November I had to get home from York which required  me to cut across country. On a 2017 Nc 750x only to find out how poor the Honda head light was .
The spot lights allowed me to get home through  dark country  roads.

[purplebikeunicorn]

I use the same ones as Rixington however I bought mine from Aliexpress for half that price, including a (semi useful) harness / relay / switch. Searched for "BMW motorcycle auxiliary lights" from memory.

Semi-useful as I had to extend the wiring to the handlebars as it is designed for a BMW.

I had some £10 eBay jobbies on before, they lasted a year and didn't really light much.

[AdvntureSi]

Osram night breaker lasers or Philips extreme vision /racing vision.. the +200 if you can find them..
My AL4 headlamp is woefully poor compared to the Varadero.. 
So I added a pair of cheapish pods, Amazon specials.  Pretty good..  but no distance...
Sinc added a single Diode Dynamics 6" "SAE" fog lamp under the beak..  this puts out a massive flood of light on the floor..
Led high heel bulb makes for a great package now..
This is all lights on..

[SteveH]

I've not ridden the V-Strom in the dark yet, but every other bike I've had has had the main light pointing either too high or too low. Have a fiddle with the headlight alignment first.

[Robotstar5]

+1 for the nightbreaker bulbs, they put out a much whiter light and you can see further.

[Gorillastrom]

Thank you all! I upgrade my bulbs as indicated and then the extra side lights look good so I’ll get them too.

As always, you are all legendary humans!