Lighting

I purchased my first bike this year, an R1150RS. I live in the mountains of north Georgia and with the wildlife present, find the stock lighting to be marginal. At night the high beam is OK but not great. The low beam scares me to death. 45mph seems to fast with the low beam on and oncoming traffic. My research tells me that the Motolights are very popular and can be left on all the time even with oncoming traffic. My question is what is everyone doing to light up the night with your high beams. I would like to buy a set of PIAA's but I've noticed that these driving light kits come with their own switch. Are riders actually hitting their high beam switch on their handlebar and then turning off another switch that controls a set of driving lights? Is the stock wiring able to handle the addition of another set of lights that come on when the high beams are activated? The ideal set up for me is this: Crank up the bike and turn on the motolights (I understand with a seperate switch). Leave these on all the time. Use my stock handlebar switch to activate another set of driving lights when I turn on the high beams.

Any suggestions or comments?
Thanks.

James,

There are many different ways to wire up aux lighting on the RS. My suggestion would be to have the PIAA's switched from the highbeam switch, you do not need to use the supplied switch from PIAA.

I would suggest having the motolights on a switch but there is no harm in leaving them on all the time. A very slick setup is to get a euro switch (different right grip) for the motolights.

Best,

Rob Nye

Rob,

Thanks for the reply. This may be the most basic of questions, but as a newbie I appreciate the response.

Best regards,

James O

lighting

James,

There are many light choices - Hella's are popular and Lightforce 140's/170's are reported to be very bright. Both are less costly than the PIAA's. The lightforces have colored lens that are easily swapped out - I'm told this makes them excellent for daytime driving.
This fix has been floating around IBMWR, others who know how this stuff work think it will improve the lighting. The fellow providing this solution has said to try it, and if you don't like he'll refund your money.
Another fix is to replace your lights with HID lighting, I've heard of Midnight Moose HID's being used and the results are reported to be spectacular.

If you go with aux lights you might want to look into the autoswitch. It'll run your additional lights from the turn signal cancel button. It's used by a lot of people.

lighting

I run a set of Piaa 1100x with a mounting kit from the Gadget Guys.

Controller is an Autoswitch, run through the turn signal cancel switch. I keep these on all the time, but adjust them at an extreme down angle unless night riding. They seem to really make me visible to the autos.

The major problem with these lights is the cost of the replacement bulbs...try $44.50, and increasingly hard to procure.

Anybody know a reliable source for this type of bulb? Autobarn is really slow, or unable to keep stock.

Jim M

That's the advantage of my Motolights. The bulbs are covered under the lifetime warranty but if it blows on the road, it only costs @ $5-$7 at Lowe's, Home Depot, or Wal-Mart.