fork mounted or body mounted aux lights?

[OoPEZoO]

Just curious what your thoughts are on both, and if you have found any real pros/cons. Not so much lights for being seen, but more for usable lighting for you to see the road and surroundings.

 

I'm not talking about on a specific bike, but bikes in general. I currently have body mount lights (installed by the previous owner), and they work pretty well. I would think that the body is a much less harsh environment for a light bulb.......due to road debris, vibration, and such. I have no evidence, its just a thought off the top of my head.

 

What say you?

 

EDIT: Oops....maybe this should be over in Bike related things......i blame my recovering eyesight

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

If you're looking for better visibility (not better conspicuity), then get the lights up high, closer to your line of sight.

 

On my 1100RT I had lights under the oil cooler that ran full-time, and a second set above the mirrors that only came on with the high beam:

 

 

Granted, the lowers were just a fog beam pattern, but still, when the uppers came on they really lit up the universe, especially out to the sides where the stock highbeam didn't do much. If you spend any significant amount of time riding after sunset on low-traffic roads, this is a worthwhile modification.

 

Note that this configuration is probably illegal in most if not all states. I'm pretty sure my uppers were above the maximum allowable height, and having all five lights on at the same time exceeded the maximum number allowed (four). Never got in any legal hot water for it, though.

[EddyQ]

The beam pattern, light output and the direction pointed would impact the amount of useful light coming from the aux lighting.

As Mitch said, line of sight height is likely best.

 

Yes, I guess a low fork mounted light is more suseptable to getting damaged from a stone or other debis. I think if I had a GS and rode on dirt roads, my motolights would have been smashed by now.

 

Vibration is not nessessarily worse at the fork. Surely the fork travels up and down rather abruptly causing high stress on the aux lamp. But fork motion is relatively low frequency. Often high frequency vibrations (like engine vibes or faring vibes) are even more destructive to lamps, connectors and wiring.

 

My motolights have survived since '07 without a single lamp failure or damage. Although I lost one main beam, which is very common on the RT.

[Fubar]

I would have to concur. It seems low mount would help with being seen more than seeing. I mounted my fog lights on the crash bars directly ahead of the cylinders and as wide as I could put them. They do help my seeing some by filling in at the edges but I put HIDs in for that purpose, these are for being seen primarily, making a triangle of lights.

[Francis]

I put crash bars on my 1150RT and mounted PIAA 1100X lights on them. They provided a lot of light to the road. Also mounted PIAA FF50 lights up top for longer distant lighting. When both lights were on the road was very well lit up. Even with just the 1100X lights on the road was well lit in front of the bike.

 

This lighting set-up was also very helpful in summer rain storms as the lower mounted lights did not have the lighting "kick back" into my eyes while also doing a good job of lighting up the highway

[tallman]

I asked meself the same thing and self said put them in both places.

So I did.