When I began serious testing of the light setup, winter was fast approaching. I'd already decided to winterize the KTM, so snow became a way test my cold weather and nighttime equipment at the same time. At this point I must admit I chose a questionable method of testing all of this equipment. The snowmobile trails crisscrossing Northern Illinois were an irresistible temptation. After consulting with my sled-fanatical neighbors, I was basically told: a) I was crazy b) I would be the only dirt biker anywhere on the trails, and c) because of this, nobody would probably care. The first two were pretty much correct the third turned out to be erroneous.
Anyway, my 6 weeks of testing revealed several facts about the light setup:
- The halogen lights are far overpowered by the LED's, so most of the time I rarely used them. Also, they compete for power with my grip warmers. I'd rather have warm hands.
- The helmet light helps me see where I need to go, while the bar- mounted light shows what's straight ahead. In the woods, this setup is just fine. In open fields, however, I could use more distance. The Baja-type racers use HID lights for this reason - when flying through the desert and warp speed, you need to see a hundred yards ahead. The LED's give me about 100 feet. It's a quality 100 feet, but sometimes I would like more.
- Battery-powered lights are a definite advantage when stopped on the trail. The engine stops, but the lights keep shining. When you're searching for a bolt in your fanny pack to replace the one that had been securing the seat, the helmet light is indispensable.
- The small-gauge wire connected to the battery relay eventually started to break. It was replaced with a larger wire.
- The Velcro strap on the helmet requires a little duct tape to keep it stable.
I was never able to test the full capacity of the Li-Po battery, but 4 hours was no problem. In November 2011, I finally got my first chance to race-test the lighting system at the Ozark 100 in southwestern Missouri. I qualified for the night portion of the race and the system worked exactly as I hoped. The trails were fairly tight, so I didn't need a very long or wide beam of light. What I did need was the ability to point the light in the direction I was looking. The helmet light was perfect for that. The handlebar- mounted light showed me the direction the bike was heading. The Orion halogen headlight was not necessary or effective, as the race was very wet and the headlight was mostly covered with mud.
Final Thoughts
The system I bought worked very well in the woods. For open riding across fields, the 10-watt LEDs were acceptable but not ideal. Cyclops now sells 25-watt single-emitter LEDs which have received good reviews for road motorcycle applications. If I were racing in the desert at night, that's the direction I would go.
After the "Next-Generation" LEDs came out all those years ago, many manufacturers jumped into the market for all types of applications. Apparently they discovered that advertising the lights based on lumen output sells a lot of lights. Didn't matter that they were simply adding up the collective lumen of multiple emitters in the same unit. The lumen number was important.
This led to LED light bars on off-road trucks and side-by-side ATVs. They looked cool with a couple dozen tiny LED emitters on one bar. Bicycle applications followed suit, with multiple compact emitters on a single unit and huge lumen ratings.
But here's the deal. The tiny multi-emitter LED setups are flood lights. They flood a small area with lots of light. This works for well vehicles moving at a crawl. They don't work as well when traveling at any sort of speed. Below is an appropriate application for light bars:
